Malice
by rynling
Summary: A lab technician named Zelda has been visited by strange dreams all her life. Her nightmares finally come true when a monstrous man appears at the door of her apartment, naked and dripping with malice. The only thing he knows for certain is that his name is Ganondorf, and both he and Zelda want answers. Urban fantasy Zelgan based on a Modern AU of Breath of the Wild.
1. Chapter 1

**In which an ancient seal is broken and a terrible thing stirs violently awake.**

* * *

There was darkness, and then a woman's voice. Her words were occluded, then clear.

_It's time. Wake up!_

Her command was a bright beam of light, and suddenly the darkness was suffocating. His muscles convulsed. He began to scream, and foul liquid gushed into his mouth. He couldn't breathe. He was drowning. He lashed out, and something tore away at his fingertips. He kept clawing himself forward until his hands were free, and then his face. He gulped down air and vomited putrescence. The world was shrouded in a blurry haze, and he had no understanding of what he saw.

Machines glowed with a soft blue luminescence in a dimness that was not quite dark. The light offended his eyes, and he hurled his many limbs at it until it was extinguished. He no longer needed to use his hands, which was as it should be. The floor was cold. His body was cold. He could smell himself, and he stank. He was hungry. _Ravenous_. He reached out again, and another set of lights was extinguished.

He attempted to raise himself from the floor. His legs would not support him, and he fell. He crawled forward on his front arms, which were slippery with the viscous slime that oozed from his skin. Ceramic shards cut into the palms of his hands, and the sting of pain filled him with anger. His rage flared outward, surrounding him with crystalline explosions of glass and metal. In the distance, a door was ripped from its hinges.

He jerked his head toward the sound. A hazy rectangle swam into his vision. Aside from the maddening pinpricks of light he hadn't been able to destroy, this was the only thing he could make out. There was something terribly wrong with his vision. He couldn't see his hands in front of his face. His head felt unbearably heavy, as did his body. There was too much of him, and he barely had the strength to pull himself along the ground. He struggled forward, but the movement of his limbs was erratic. How many arms did he have? How many legs?

A piercing sliver of glass dug between his ribs as he crawled forward, and an acrid smell assailed his nostrils as ichor spilled out of him in thick gobs. He was overwhelmed by disgust. His stomach lurched, and he vomited into the tangle of hair framing his jaws as the stinking pool of fluid spilling from his body spread. He didn't know his name, and he couldn't imagine his face, but he knew with an unyielding certainty that he was not supposed to be alive. He was meant to die; he was sure of it.

_It's okay_, the woman's voice whispered. _It's going to be okay. You're all right._

He let out a roar and sent his limbs flying. Some detached themselves from his body and landed in the far darkness with hideous squelching noises. He flexed his limbs again, and he was lighter. It was easier to move, so he rose from the ground. He stood, overbalanced, and fell back into his own filth.

The cursed voice that had woken him was responsible for his misery. He would end his existence, but first he would find this woman and make her feel every ounce of the hurt and despair she had inflicted on him. He imagined the satisfaction of digging his fingers into her throat as her hateful voice shrieked in fear. In his mind he reached one of his arms into her chest and tore out her hideously beating heart, her shining eyes trapped within his own as their light flickered out. The ceramic coating affixed to his face cracked as the broken bone beneath it twisted his bloody lips into a horrifying caricature of a smile.


	2. Chapter 2

**In which a sleeper rises from a dream of ill omen.**

* * *

She was standing in water as thick and lightless as oil, and it was rising. The water was freezing cold, and it rose past her chest, past her shoulders, past her chin. She couldn't move, not even to thrust her mouth above the waves. When the tarry liquid entered her nostrils, all she could do was choke, feeling that somewhere, someone hated her without reason or mercy.

_It's time_. A voice as warm as a summer day cut softly through the dark water. _Wake up!_

Zelda gasped as her alarm shattered the reality of her nightmare, but the slimy residue of the otherworldly fury that had tried to drown her lingered on her skin. It wasn't real, of course, but her heart was racing, and her face and hands were clammy with sweat.

Zelda had suffered from frightening dreams her entire life. By all rights she should be used to them, but she could never shake the feeling that they were conveying some sort of message. Her nightmares felt _real_. They were far more substantial than normal dreams, and they were always accompanied by the certainty that there was something she had forgotten and desperately needed to remember.

_One day_, she kept telling herself. One day she would lie awake in bed and listen closely for the voice that was trying to speak to her through her nightmares. That was the other reason she was never able to dismiss her dreams – she felt as if someone were trying to communicate with her, someone who had no words and was forced to use images and sensations instead. Even through the terror and the pain, there was always the sense of a powerful will. In the darkness, freezing and filled with malice, something had been telling her to _move_, to gather her strength and save herself. But she couldn't. She hadn't yet found the means to break her paralysis, and the alien consciousness intruding into her dreams was too strange.

The alarm on her phone went off again. Zelda swiped the screen to silence it. She sat up in bed and tried to gain control of her breathing, but she was consumed by anxiety. She couldn't shake the premonition that something horrible was going to happen, not in the indefinite future or later today but _right now_.

"It's okay," Zelda whispered. "It's going to be okay. You're all right. Just take it easy. Everything's going to be fine. It's okay. You're fine."

Such anodyne platitudes meant nothing, but the act of saying these words out loud helped her to feel calmer. If nothing else, the awful pressure on her mind receded enough for her to be able to toss away the covers and put her feet on the floor. Zelda turned on the small lamp beside her bed. The light burned her eyes, and she hated it. She felt an urge to pick up the lamp and smash it against the floor. She actually reached out for it before catching herself and withdrawing her hand.

"That's new," Zelda muttered. She had stopped taking her medication when she moved into her own apartment a few weeks ago, and she still encountered new thoughts and sensations with each passing day. She kept a document on her laptop that she used to catalog her mental state, and she had begun looking forward to updating it every evening. "Today I discovered that I enjoy spicy food," she would write, or "I love the color blue." She would try to describe her dreams when she remembered them, but she couldn't imagine what she would say about the one she had just woken from. _With any luck_, _maybe I'll forget it_, she thought, knowing that she wouldn't. She never forgot her nightmares. She remembered each and every one of them with a hideous clarity, beginning with the one that had gotten her into so much trouble as a child.

In any case, she had to get up. She would be late to work if she didn't hurry. She'd have to take a short shower. If everything went smoothly, she might be able to have a quick bite to eat before she left.

"You're okay," she assured herself. "You're doing just fine."

Unfortunately, she wasn't fine. She was, in fact, broke and unhappy. Zelda loved that this apartment was hers, but that was the only good thing about it. It was small and uncomfortable and far away from her job, which she also hated. When she was younger, she envisioned herself doing great things, not spending an hour on a crowded train so that she could inject chemicals into small animals and enter redundant bits and pieces of data into an endless spreadsheet. She wanted her life to mean something. A steady procession of doctors told her that she was too weak to handle stress, but she didn't feel that way at all. She occasionally felt helpless and frightened, but she had _never_, not once in her life, felt weak.

And so she had run away to meet whatever destiny she could create on her own. Perhaps one day she would realize what that destiny was. In the meantime, she had to pay the rent.

"Come on, you can do this," she told herself. "Just one step at a time. You're going to get there, I know it. You'll figure out where you need to go. Just keep going."


	3. Chapter 3

**In which an eldritch monstrosity makes a steady creeping progress toward the object of its desire.**

* * *

_Come on, you can do this_, the woman's voice said. _Just one step at a time. You're going to get there, I know it. You'll figure out where you need to go. Just keep going_.

He hated the voice. He hated its inane drivel, and he hated the foolish woman it belonged to. He would kill her, and then he would sleep again. Forever, if the gods had any mercy. Soon he could rest, but first he had to silence the voice that shone like a piercing beam of light in the comforting darkness of his mind.

The room where he woke stank of negligence and the dusty musk of forgotten things, and he was assaulted by the acrid reek of his own putrescent fluids coagulating in the enclosed space. He had no patience for the maze of corridors branching from the cavernous chamber that contained him, so he charged forward and destroyed everything that stood in his path.

The outside air was humid and suffused with the rich and heady odor of rot. The night sky was polluted with artificial light, and this offended him even more than the sour smell. He reached out with his multitude of hands and shattered as many of the lights as he could reach. His body was stronger now, and he was not bothered by the sting of the shards of glass raining down on him.

His vision returned in slow stages as he shed his excess limbs. The ceramic mask that covered the sensitive skin of his face developed deep cracks and began to fall away, but this didn't trouble him, nor did the black oil leaking from his body in a slick trail. He was consumed by a terrible hunger, but everything he saw through the haze of his glassy eyes made him sick. There were wires everywhere, wires and towers and pavement pitted with gaping holes. He could feel the earth moaning in pain. He began to groan in a tuneless echo. Before he slept, he would purify this filth with fire. He was rage, and he was destruction, and the sky would weep at the cataclysm we would unleash on this blighted land. First, however, he would deal with the wretched woman intruding into the sanctum of his thoughts.

Every time she spoke, he grabbed onto her voice and pulled himself through the darkness between worlds, phasing through space in messy jumps. He discarded extraneous parts of himself with each leap through the freezing void. The pain was maddening, disorienting his primitive sense of direction. He couldn't track his location as the city shifted around him, nor could he grasp how his body shifted with it. He dismembered and reconstructed himself by instinct, the same instinct that compelled him to hone in on the voice in his head.

He would have been lost without the woman's words; nothing he saw or smelled made sense to him. The only thing he knew was that he was in a city. He must have lived in this city before, for he recognized its contours, but he was repulsed by how it wallowed in its own decay. The city was a corpse, and surely the people who lived here must be insects.

Yes, here was a swarm of insects, huddling around a fire in a metal can, covered in tattered layers of clothing too warm for the climate, dragging trash behind them like swollen intestines. Even in the light of the fire, their eyes were dead and empty.

They still screamed when they saw him. They shrieked and fled like the miserable and pathetic creatures they were.

_It's not so bad. Keep going!_

The woman spoke again, and he shifted closer to her, folding space around himself like a cloak.

He emerged in a pitiful cage of tamed nature that resembled a park, but what a pitiful park it was, with rubbish floating in pools of stagnant water. A boy too young to be out past nightfall cried as a man pawed at him from behind. The boy saw the shadows bend around the twisted contours of his body as he materialized, and he began crying with great jagged gasps. The man paid no attention to either of them.

The woman spoke again, and he shifted underground, where the wind howled through tunnels dripping with dirty water. An electric current jolted into his body through a thick strip of metal embedded into the moist ground. He roared as he uprooted it and shredded the wires feeding its current. The tunnel's ceiling shuddered with his passage and began to collapse in his wake.

The woman spoke again, and he shifted back into the open air. Now he was in a plaza paved with marble slabs radiating from a hateful statue that memorialized a foolish child mounted on a horse slavering with fear. The indignity of the statue was an affront, so he toppled it with the unbalanced bulk of his body, finding a grim satisfaction in the tremors of its fall.

He was getting closer to the voice; he could feel it. As disgusted as he was by everything he saw in this rotting city, he hated the woman's incessant pablum even more. What a pleasure it would be to tear her voice from her throat with the claws of his own hands.

_Nothing is going to get in your way_, she said. _You will find what you're looking for_.

_Oh yes_, he thought in the horrible buzzing chaos of his mind. _I will_.


	4. Chapter 4

**In which the monstrous visitor Zelda has dreaded finally arrives.**

* * *

Zelda balanced uncomfortably on her toes as she used a pin to secure the stray strands of hair that threatened to fall over her forehead. Her bathroom mirror was warped and stained, and she had to position herself in exactly the right way to be able to see what she was doing. It had taken her hours of scrubbing to clean the windowless room after she moved in, but she'd come to the conclusion that the mirror was beyond repair. The glare of the light bulb screwed directly into the ceiling didn't help.

She'd already had to cut her shower short so she wouldn't be late, and she was on the verge of giving up on her hair. She could always pull it into a ponytail for the time being and redo it at one of the bathrooms at work. She hated to leave a task unfinished, however, and the thought of looking sloppy on the subway didn't sit well with her. She would use just one more hairpin, and –

Zelda reached down, still attempting to hold her hair in place with one hand, and something about the way her body twisted triggered a wave of nausea. Her hand twitched, knocking the hairpin off the narrow rim of the sink.

She glanced down at the floor, and her stomach lurched again. She couldn't see the hairpin in the darkness of the shadow thrown by the harsh light. Straining her eyes gave her a headache, and now she felt frustrated as well as sick. If she wasn't careful, she was going to cry. This was exactly like the withdrawal she'd had to endure when she stopped taking her medication. The first two weeks had been awful. She thought she'd made it through, but here she was again. She wanted to crawl back into bed, but there was no way she could take time off work. This was her first real job, and she needed to keep it.

_Nothing is going to get in your way_, she told herself. _You will find what you're looking for_.

The glint of her hairpin caught her eye. She bent down, scooped it up, and blew off the dust before adjusting it to make sure her bangs stayed in place. It was going to be a long day, and the last thing she needed to worry about was her appearance. She was still the youngest research assistant at the lab, and people judged her for the smallest and most innocent mistakes. Making sure she at least looked like a professional sometimes felt like the only defense she had.

_As long as nothing else goes wrong, I should be good to go_, Zelda assured herself as she assessed her reflection. _Nothing bad is going to happen today._

She was about to turn off the bathroom light when she was struck by another wave of nausea. It was followed by an intense sensation of vertigo, as if the earth had suddenly disappeared from under her feet. She reached out to stabilize herself, but there was nothing to grab onto. She was going to fall; and, once she fell, she would never stop.

_I must still be dreaming_, she thought. She tried to focus on her breathing and anchor herself to her surroundings, but her concentration only made her more aware of how strange everything had become. There was an intense pressure in the air, just like the atmosphere before a thunderstorm. She couldn't be sure, but she thought she could hear an unpleasant humming pitched almost too low to perceive, and she could have sworn that there were bright crimson sparks rising from the floor.

Zelda closed her eyes in an attempt to block everything out, but then a booming sound echoed through her apartment. It was so loud that she could feel the vibration through the soles of her feet. She'd never experienced a hallucination like this before, so it must be real. Perhaps someone's car engine had misfired on the street outside.

She shook her head and waited until she felt the floor become solid again. She breathed in through her nose and exhaled through her mouth as her disorientation faded. She opened her eyes, and there was no longer an eerie red glow in the dingy bathroom of her small apartment. The humming had disappeared as well, and the only thing she could hear was the slow drip of water from the shower head. Had she just imaged the earlier sound?

There was another crash, louder this time. Zelda flinched. There was no mistaking it. Someone must be at the door.

Zelda was filled with dread. Her heart hammered in her chest, and it was difficult to breathe. She'd had panic attacks before, but they were always caused by her dreams and hallucinations, not anything in reality. She considered going to the door like a normal person, like a person who didn't have visions or nightmares, but she hesitated. No human was capable of making such a sound, not unless they were trying to tear her door down with some sort of machine. Something was obviously wrong. Maybe she could pretend that she had already left for work. That was reasonable, right? Come to think of it, she actually was already dressed, so there was nothing stopping her from grabbing her shoes and bag and leaving her apartment through the back garden.

But no. Whatever was happening, this was real, and she had to deal with it.

The door burst open just as Zelda turned to face it. She threw up her arm to shield her eyes as splinters of wood flew toward her.

She braced herself and looked up. There was an enormous man across the threshold, easily as tall as the doorway itself. He opened his mouth, and a broken buzzing sound like static emerged. He might have been saying words, but he wasn't speaking in a language she understood. His hair and beard were matted with a thick slime. His entire body was covered in tarry ooze, and he stank like a broken-down truck leaking oil onto hot asphalt.

The man barged into her apartment, still emitting a horrible noise that sounded oddly like speech. She forced herself to stop looking at him, hoping there was something nearby that she could use as a weapon. As she dropped her eyes, she couldn't help but notice that he was very naked.

This struck her as unbearably funny.

This was it? This was the calamity she had been having nightmares about for so many years? He was awful, certainly, but she had imagined much worse. This was just a man, and he _really_needed to put on some clothes. As she looked into the face of the hulking wreck of a creature that was barely human, she was surprised to find that her most pressing concern was whether or not she owned any clothing big enough to fit him.

_I could wrap him in comforter_, she thought, letting out a manic giggle as she imagined him wearing her bed sheet as a robe. The look of confusion on his face as he watched her reaction was so comical that she couldn't help breaking into laughter.

_Oh Hylia, this is it. My nightmares finally came true, and I'm going to die laughing. _

The man made no attempt to attack her, however. He had fallen silent, and he seemed to be waiting for her to make the next move. Zelda had no idea how to handle such a surreal situation. In her dreams she was always threatened by billowing dark clouds or rampaging whirlwinds or endless conflagrations or towering tidal waves, not a dirty naked man who looked like he slept in a garbage bin and didn't even have the sense not to walk around with his dick out. She was terrified of what he might do to her, but she also felt more than a bit sorry for him.

"All right, then," Zelda said, rolling up her sleeves as she made a decision. "If you've come to kill me, I guess I can't stop you, but first you need to take a shower."


	5. Chapter 5

**In which a cursed name is spoken.**

* * *

She was not what he expected. He had seen her as a priestess, a warrior, a queen.

She was dressed like a peasant, and the room behind her was a hovel. His first impression was that she was pathetic. His second, immediately following his first, was that she was powerful beyond measure.

He spoke to her with all of his voices, telling her exactly what he intended to do to her. Her last moments would be slow and painful, and she would scream. Oh, how she would scream. He would force her to watch as he dismembered her, wringing out every drop of satisfaction from her pain and misery. He would kill anyone who attempted to save her, and she would envy the swiftness of their deaths.

She looked upon his rage and laughed.

Of course she would laugh. She had strength enough to laugh at him. He could tell just by in being in her presence that her power was great, perhaps even as great as his own. He forgot himself and stared in wonder. Gazing at her made him feel different, somehow. More like himself. He was on the verge of remembering something when she spoke. He couldn't understand her words, but he _knew_ her, and perhaps she knew him as well. His earlier desire to rip into her flesh and tear her voice from her throat seemed like a dream from which he was just beginning to wake. If only he could remember…

The woman laughed again and reached for him. He could have snapped her slender arm between his hands and shattered her bones into splinters, but the compulsion to do so was small and insignificant in the light of his fascination. He remained still and watched as her hand moved tentatively closer. He understood that he would feel something when her fingers touched his skin, but he wasn't prepared for the ferocity of the sensation.

Her touch burned him like ice – _When have I felt ice?_ – and he reacted on instinct, roaring and swinging his fist to bat her away.

She dodged the blow with ease and flowed away from him like water before clutching her hand to her chest as her face twisted with pain. _Good_, he thought, his hatred coalescing into words. _I hurt her_.

She spoke again as she regarded him with a level glare. Her speech still held no meaning for him, but the irritation in her tone was clear. She saw him as a problem to be solved. Whatever he was, she was going to fix him. The urge to kill her returned, rising in his throat like bile.

_I will rip every tooth from your cursed mouth and tear out your tongue once you can no longer scream_, he assured her as he took a step forward.

She turned her back to him and began rooting through a pile of rubbish on a raised platform behind her. Her refusal to acknowledge him filled him with rage. He approached her and almost stumbled as his thigh bumped against the sharp edge of a frame covered in a shoddy pile of fabric.

_I will pluck out your eye, but only one, and I will hold back your air with my hands until you are forced to swallow your own sight. You will choke on your own vomit as you beg me to end your miserable life._

She removed a small metal rod capped with a bundle of shiny black fabric from the jumbled mess of objects and pressed a button at its base to extend it. She pointed it at him and then pointed deeper into the room, indicating where she wanted him to move. She apparently intended for him to go into an even smaller room. He could smell the acrid reek of chemicals from where he stood.

_Do not issue orders to me_. He attempted to speak in only one voice but failed, and his words emerged in a cacophony. She regarded him with a blank stare, and it dawned on him that she couldn't understand what he was saying. There was no point in attempting to communicate with her, then. This realization filled him with a profound sense of exhaustion. He considered killing her quickly so that he could dig himself deep into the earth and return to sleep, but his pride forbade him from attacking her if she displayed no sign of aggression.

She said something in her strange language and once again turned away from him. He watched as she walked to the other side of the room and slid a large panel of glass open along metal rails. A fresh breeze blew into the stagnant room, bringing with it the clean smell of green earth. He followed the woman to the window, and she slipped away from him as he approached, talking all the while. He couldn't understand her language, but he could perceive her thoughts if he concentrated on her voice. His ability to hear her was fading, but he could still pick out bright flashes of meaning in the stream of her words.

_You're covered in scars, what in Din's name happened to you to make you look like that, I hope you're not too big to fit in the shower, we've got to get you cleaned up, how should I – _

The irony of the situation was bitter. He came to kill her, but she apparently meant to bathe him. Now that his senses had been refreshed by the outside air, he could smell water. The woman must have been trying to get him to enter a washroom. He became painfully aware of his own odor, and it occurred to him that he would indeed like to be washed.

She poked him with the soft end of the metal rod, and he allowed her to shepherd him into a tiled room. He recoiled at how confining it was, but the wretched woman poked at him again, urging him to step into a large enamel basin. He hissed at her but did as she asked, only barely tolerating the underlying stench of mildew and ammonia. Everything about this room was squalid; it was fit only for an animal. The woman drew close to him. He considered striking her for her impudence but desisted. He watched as she adjusted a series of knobs, which caused a burst of water to rain down on him. It was scalding hot, and if felt wonderful.

The woman continued speaking in a soft murmur, and he understood that she was attempting to calm him as a soldier would talk to a horse to comfort it in its confusion. _When have I ridden a horse?_ He pushed the thought away and allowed himself to be soothed by the warmth of the water and the hum of her voice.

She reached past him to remove a sponge from a hook on the wall and soaped it with a liquid that smelled of lye cut with a cheap perfume. He wanted to demand that she take it away from him, but she started scrubbing him before he could open his mouth. She began with his right arm before moving to his left. She was careful not to touch his skin or expose herself to the stream of water, but she was unable to prevent the front of her shirt from getting wet.

He began to have thoughts that were alien to him. The fabric of her shirt was thin and poorly woven. The cut of the tailoring didn't fit her, and the shade of white didn't suit her skin at all. Who was responsible for dressing this woman? He watched as the peaks of her breasts stiffened from the friction of the wet fabric as she scrubbed his chest in brisk circles. He felt himself begin to react to the pleasurable sensation as his cock began to stiffen.

Suddenly he could see himself as she must see him, a man so covered in filth and grime that it didn't even occur to her to acknowledge his nakedness. She didn't see him as a man, and he hated her for that.

_Get out_, he muttered, too disgusted by the situation to raise his voice. She apparently picked up the danger in his tone, for she stopped washing him and glanced up at his face with wide eyes.

She spoke to him in a small voice, and he had to summon the full force of his concentration to be able to understand what she was saying: _Who are you?_

_I don't know_, he wanted to answer, but then, as he gazed into her eyes in an attempt to read her thoughts, he did know.

_Ganondorf_.

As soon as he spoke the name, the world came crashing down around him. All the people he was and could have been collapsed into his body like the solid weight of gravity. He still had no memories, but suddenly he was inexorably himself.

_Get out_, he said again, making a gesture to shoo her away. For the first time she looked at him with fear. He scowled at her, and she flinched.

What did she think he was going to do? He could have killed her at any moment, but it was only when he no longer intended to hurt her that she started to be afraid of him. Foolish woman. She was emitting so much magical energy that she was practically shining, but she didn't seem to be aware of it in the slightest. The raw force of his rage deserted him as soon as his name had been returned to him, and she could have killed him then and there had she wished to do so. The terror in her eyes was so ridiculous that it was offensive. At least she would leave him in peace.

Ganondorf watched her walk away and began the long and unpleasant task of cleaning himself.


	6. Chapter 6

**In which Zelda attempts to rationalize the absurd.**

* * *

_Fuck_, Zelda cursed under her breath as she checked the time on her phone. She was going to be late, and her train would probably be so crowded that she'd have to stand the whole way to work.

"Hylia _please_ don't let me lose this job," she murmured to herself, picking up her pace. She stumbled as her boot heel caught a raised corner of the sidewalk, and she came down awkwardly on her ankle in the middle of the intersection.

The damp spots on her clothing clung uncomfortably to her skin, and she was beginning to perspire. The day was already warm and humid, and it was almost certainly going to rain soon. She should have changed, but she couldn't stand to spend another second alone in her apartment with that _thing_. It was clearly a hallucination, but the way it had gone from making inarticulate mechanical noises to speaking to her in an alien language creeped her out. Its eyes, which had been glowing empty sockets when it broke down her door, had become human at some point. But could such an awful creature truly be human? It didn't seem to be fully organic, and its physical form visibly shifted each time she looked at it. Its face was brutal and horrific, as if it had been beaten and broken and reshaped by someone who had never seen an actual person.

And yet it – _he_, she corrected herself, for the monster had been undeniably male – had the gall to kick her out of her own bathroom. If he spoke like a human, she reasoned, she might as well treat him like one. Zelda wished the first person to visit her apartment hadn't been a failed science experiment with a nasty mat of hair hanging down to his bare ass, but he was her guest, even if she was almost entirely certain that he wasn't real.

What would someone like that even want with her, anyway? She filled her electric kettle and dumped everything scattered across the table onto the couch while she waited for the water to boil. When the timer clicked off, she poured the hot water over two bags of black tea in a clear glass pot, one of the few nice things she had in her apartment. As the tea steeped, she busied herself collecting various items the man might need when he got out of the shower: an extra towel, a pair of scissors, a hairbrush, a couple of hairbands, and her electric shaver. It was debatable whether he would even know what an electric shaver was, but it wasn't her fault if he hurt himself because he didn't understand basic hygiene.

The tea had steeped long enough, so she removed the bags from the pot and set it on the table next to an empty ceramic mug. She didn't know what this man ate – probably rocks, judging by the state of his teeth – but he would more than likely be hungry after a hard night terrorizing the city, or whatever it was he was doing before he ended up at her door. She put two slices of bread in the toaster and hurried to her bedroom. _I hope he doesn't try to come in here_, she thought, wishing the door to the room had a lock.

In the bottom drawer of her mostly empty dresser was a set of clothes she had accidentally ordered in the wrong size: a black tracksuit, a white t-shirt, and a pair of running shorts. It had taken her a few weeks to set up an account on Beedlenet, so she'd had to use Malo Mart Online, which didn't require a credit card. It was the first time she'd ordered clothing from the internet. She was was so overwhelmed by the site's busy interface that she didn't remember to select her size, and everything came in XXXL. Returning the package was too much of a hassle, and throwing away new clothing felt like a waste, so she kept everything. It's not as if there were anything else taking up space in her apartment.

_You never know_, Zelda told herself, and this turned out to be remarkably apt. Who could have known that a seven-foot-tall monster of a man would turn up at her door? She often wondered what would happen if her nightmares came true, but she never expected the reality to be quite so literal. Zelda set the pile of folded clothing on the table next to the extra towel and returned to the kitchen. She put the toast on a plate, drizzled it with honey, and left it next to the tea.

Zelda could still hear the sound of the shower from the other side of the bathroom door, but she was running late and didn't have time to wait for the man to come out and start spitting more garbled nonsense words at her. "Ganondorf," he called himself. She vaguely remembered hearing the name before, but she couldn't remember where. Not that it mattered; none of this was real, and she had to get to work.

Zelda paused on the other side of the intersection and stretched her sore ankle to make sure it wasn't sprained. This made her to miss the next light, which she found irritating. Her first instinct was to blame Ganondorf, which irritated her even more. Small annoyances usually didn't faze her at all. "What in Din's name is wrong with me," she muttered. The person standing next to her on the sidewalk gave her an odd look and crossed to the other side of the street.

_Fuck it_, she thought. She took a step forward, fully intending to jaywalk, but she stopped when she saw a Sheikah patrol car turn the corner. This was the third one she'd spotted in as many blocks. Was it just her, or were there a lot of them out this morning?

Zelda made it to the station just in time to catch the next train after the one she usually took. All the seats were taken, exactly as she'd feared, and she had to stand. The ride was too bumpy for her to read anything on her phone, so she was stuck with her own thoughts.

An onslaught of worries struck her almost immediately. She'd forgotten to close the window before she left, for one thing. And she'd left her laptop on the couch, for another. She'd managed to shut her front door after her, but the lock was busted, so there was nothing keeping strangers out of the apartment. Well, nothing except the crazy person who'd occupied her shower. Was he homeless? He had to be homeless. Or maybe he'd escaped from prison. She'd left a homeless convict alone in her apartment with almost everything she owned so she could get to work on time, which wasn't the smartest thing she'd ever done in her life.

But no, he was a hallucination. He had to be. It was easy enough to tell herself that a homeless person had broken into her apartment, but Zelda knew that wasn't what happened. He wasn't anything you could call a _person_, at least not at first. He was too big, and he had too many appendages, each of which was twisted and misshapen in its own unique and disturbing way. His musculature made no sense, and he kept _shifting_ every time she looked away from him. His body was covered in wounds so deep that he shouldn't have been able to stand, much less break down her door. His skin was coated with some sort of ooze that looked like the globs of creosote the city used to waterproof utility poles, and he smelled like subway tracks that had caught on fire. He produced grating metallic sounds from a mouth filled with wreckage, and his face was a swamp of pulpy flesh partially covered by an oddly textured ceramic mask. He was a walking nightmare only vaguely shaped like a human. In fact, he was so monstrous that she had trouble taking him seriously.

She had expected worse, to be honest. To be even more honest, he was kind of silly looking.

It was only when he spoke to her in the shower that she felt fear. Somewhere inside of all of that horror, there was an actual human being. What sort of unspeakable acts had been performed on him? And why had he come to her, of all people?

The worst aspect of the encounter, the thing she forcibly pushed out of her mind as she set out food and prepared to leave, was that hearing him speak to her had given her a powerful sense of déjà vu. She recognized his voice. It felt familiar to her, somehow.

And when she tried to touch him… No, it was best not to think of that, not right now.

The more time she spent on the train surrounded by real people engaging with the real world, the easier it was for Zelda to reassure herself that this had all been a hallucination. After all, if she were just seeing things, then Ganondorf (or whoever he was) would surely be gone when she got home.

This conclusion didn't sit well with her, however. Zelda had always been told that she was mentally ill, and she hated it. She wasn't "normal," that much was certain, but she wasn't sick. As much as she didn't need any monsters in her life at the moment, a part of her wanted Ganondorf to be real, if only because that meant _she_ was real as well.


	7. Chapter 7

**In which Ganondorf puts himself in order.**

* * *

He didn't feel clean. He felt as though he'd never been clean in his life and would never be clean again, but he didn't want to be in the tiny washroom anymore. He didn't want to deal with the woman either, so he waited until he heard her leave before he turned off the water.

To his surprise, Ganondorf found that she'd had the good grace to leave behind a towel and some tea. The tea was still too hot to drink, so he knotted the towel around his waist and returned to the washroom with the pair of scissors she'd placed next to the towel. If nothing else, the woman knew how to make a statement, and he had to admit that something _did_ need to be done about his hair. The mirror hanging on the wall was too warped for him to see himself clearly, but he did his best to tie back his hair with an elastic band so that he could cut his beard.

The lingering humidity loosened the last traces of the ceramic mask clinging to his face. The shards crumbled under his fingers like ash.

Ganondorf attempted to make use of the razor, which was apparently powered by electricity, but it short-circuited when he attempted to charge it with his own magic. The voltage must have been too strong; he'd need to be more careful in the future. He summoned a small knife into his hand and used it to shave. He still had trouble controlling his arms and nicked himself a few times, but his body healed as rapidly as he could damage it.

The small tiled room was a disaster when he finished. Ganondorf considered leaving the mess on the floor out of spite, but it would be more trouble than it was worth to have so much hair and slime lying about. He used magic to clean it. On emerging from the washroom, he decided to take care of the broken door, as well as the tarry black footprints on the dusty bare floorboards. The clothing the woman laid out for him was as cheap and tasteless as the outfit she'd worn herself, but he had little choice. He had every intention of leaving before she returned and never seeing her again, but he hoped someone would do her a favor and buy her some decent clothes at some point.

Steam was no longer rising from the pot of tea, so Ganondorf poured himself a cup and walked to the large window at the rear of the apartment. It slid along a flimsy metal rail to open onto a small patch of grass fringed with hydrangea bushes that hadn't yet bloomed. It was as humid outside as it was inside. The smell of a coming storm lingered in the air.

Ganondorf stepped outside into the weeds and took a sip of tea. His stomach lurched so violently in response that he fell to his knees. He dropped the mug, and the sound of it breaking was the last thing he heard before he vomited.

It seemed to go on forever. What emerged from inside his body was vile. It scorched the grass, leaving only bare earth and a slurry of black putrescence that evaporated into a poisonous-smelling vapor as soon as it came into contact with the air.

Ganondorf couldn't bear to look at the effluvia, much less touch it with his magic, so he went back inside and slid the window shut behind him. At least it would rain soon.

With the window closed, the odors inside the room were stronger. He could smell toasted bread and honey. He was suddenly ravenous. He ate what the woman had left for him, barely chewing. He went into her kitchen when he finished. It didn't take him long to find the icebox. He pried it open and marveled at the chilly air that blasted into his face. It was a fantastic device, a wonder of engineering, and it was wasted in this hovel. It was also practically empty.

He consumed everything he found, eggs and fruit and vegetables. He devoured everything as it was, fresh and raw and oily and bitter, and he could feel his teeth and face and skin healing as he ate.

Once his hunger was dealt with, he rinsed a dirty mug sitting beside the sink and poured himself another cup of tea. He had no memory of who he was or how he got here, but he refused to let this bother him. He could worry about the details of his circumstances later, once he was able to leave the claustrophobic space of this woman's living quarters.

His mind had begun rearranging itself, and the layout of the room made more sense to him now. The raised platform was a table. The metal rod the woman poked him with was an umbrella. The tall window was a sliding door. The pile of fabric he had almost tripped over earlier was a couch, and he wanted nothing as much as he wanted to sit down.

He swept the jumble of objects littering the cushions onto the floor. Something that resembled a book with a burnished metal cover caught his attention. It emitted light when he opened it, and he studied it as he drank his tea.

Judging by the keys set into the interior of one of the metal covers, the object was probably meant to be held with its spine positioned horizontally. He balanced it on his thighs so that the glowing screen was facing him. The small keys set into the interior of the lower cover were marked with characters. Although their shapes were slightly different than the letters he knew, he could still read them. The machine seemed to be intended for text entry. Perhaps this was something like a diary. The glowing screen was occupied by a single box. At its center, five short dashes blinked on and off. It must be requesting a passcode. As Ganondorf stared at the screen, he realized what it must be.

Zelda. He knew the woman's name as surely as he knew his own.

Z-E-L-D-A, he typed, picking out each individual letter with one finger. The screen flashed and changed, but he had no understanding of what he had been granted access to. Although he recognized the letters, none of the words on the screen meant anything to him.

Ganondorf frowned and snapped the cover of the metal book shut. He set it down beside him and leaned back as he drained the rest of the tea from the mug. How had he known the woman's name? Did he know her? She seemed to recognize him, or at least it had seemed that way, if only for a moment. But why would she ask him for his name? If she didn't know him, why didn't she try to fight him? Nothing about this situation made sense. All he knew was that he had been sleeping, and she had woken him up. She summoned him to her, somehow. But where had he come from? Where was he now?

He stood up and walked to the bookshelf set against the wall by the kitchen. Like the rest of the room, it was mostly empty. Its shelves were occupied by nothing more than a dozen small books and a pile of unfamiliar coins. He picked up one of the books, and –

_He was in a beautifully furnished room with a polished stone floor. A long bookcase stretched along the wall in front of him. There must be hundreds of books here, all well-read. A strange twilight fell through the high windows and illuminated the gold and silver letters embedded on the spines, which glowed with a soft radiance. _

– he opened the cover and flipped to a random page, shaking his head to clear away the sudden vision. Although the script was as oddly shaped as the letters on the metal keys, he recognized several words, but the overall meaning was lost on him. His sense of disorientation was maddening.

Ganondorf suppressed the urge to rip the book in half. As he closed it, a scrap of paper fell from between its pages. He caught it as it drifted down. Someone had scrawled a random series of numbers on the paper in thin blue ink. This meant nothing to him, but underneath the numbers was a name he had no trouble reading: Link.


	8. Chapter 8

**In which Zelda doesn't yet trust herself enough to confide her worries to Link.**

* * *

Zelda always knew she wanted to be a scientist. She enjoyed cleaning and laying out a neat array of tools and instruments, and she enjoyed the rigorous precision of ensuring that all variables were controlled during an experiment. The process of adjusting different elements little by little in order to observe changes gave her a sense of satisfaction, as if she were honing in on an absolute truth that no one could dispute. The slow formation of a web of data across multiple trials was a beautiful process to witness. Zelda even enjoyed comparing her conclusions with those of published papers, searching for discrepancies and connections in the details. She excelled at discovering explanations in unlikely places and reading the stories hidden between the lines as she found holes to be filled and weaknesses to be addressed.

Her work had been praised by her professors, and she managed to find a position even with her unusual circumstances – being a bit older than other college graduates, for instance, and having no prior employment history. Zelda understood that everyone had to start somewhere, and she didn't expect special treatment. Still, she was quickly becoming disenchanted with her job as a lab technician. All day she sat in front of a computer monitor and copied the results of handwritten reports into digital files. It was important to process this data, of course, and the numbers wouldn't enter themselves into a spreadsheet, but this wasn't what she wanted to do with her life.

She didn't enjoy spending ten hours a day in a windowless lab, and she didn't imagine the animals used in the tests she recorded enjoyed it either. She'd started to notice a streak of cruelty in the other researchers in her division, who treated the subjects as disposable objects. And why shouldn't they? Zelda hadn't yet been allowed to participate in any clinical trials herself, but she was the one who ran the numbers. She knew exactly how much the life of an individual animal was worth: almost nothing. Whether it was a mouse or a chuchu, it cost more to keep it alive than it did to kill it and order another sample. Based on what she'd seen, Zelda suspected that the death of these animals was built into the methodological structure of the trials her lab performed. Why were the experiments designed to be so cruel? It didn't actually save that much money, it wasn't making anyone happy, and it was completely unnecessary.

Zelda disliked academia and had no interest in continuing on to grad school, but she was starting to regret her decision to enter a corporate lab. Not that she had much choice in the matter, unfortunately. If she wanted to get away from her father's family, she needed money, and it wasn't as if she could just smash pots for rupees. All things considered, it was better to be the person managing the experiment's data than the person being experimented on.

Maybe it was because she'd had a monster invade her apartment this morning instead of her usual cup of coffee, but Zelda felt more on edge than usual. She didn't hear Link enter the office, and she almost shrieked with alarm when he greeted her.

Link grinned, amused by her reaction. "It's just a package. It doesn't bite. But I'll check, just to be safe," he assured her, shaking a small padded envelope. "By the sound of it, I'm going to say it's a book."

Link worked as a courier for Beedlenet. As the lowest person in the lab's pecking order, it was Zelda's job to sign for the daily deliveries and take them to the mail room. She had no interest in speaking to people she didn't know, but it was impossible to be chilly to Link, who was by far the most charming person she'd ever met. He also had the most symmetrical face she'd ever had the pleasure of laying eyes on. He was almost impossibly attractive, if a bit short. Out of curiosity, Zelda had once run a Navi search on him, thinking that perhaps he was an aspiring actor or musician. It took her no time at all to find that he was a minor celebrity on Skyloft, where he posted daily pictures of himself being fit and athletic. Zelda didn't understand why someone like Link would bother being friendly to her, but she felt comfortable around him nonetheless.

"Thank you for your service, hero," she said, extending her hand for the package. "I appreciate the special attention, but what did you do with the rest of the deliveries?"

"Already dropped them off in the mail room. Somebody left the door open, so I thought I'd save you the trouble of wheeling the cart down the hall. It's probably a good thing I did, because you look like shit. Are you okay? I have some moisturizer if you want to borrow it."

"Well excuse me, princess." Zelda rolled her eyes. "But no, I'm fine. It's just been a long day."

"It's not even noon yet. Are you sure you don't want some moisturizer?"

"Maybe I do, actually. If you're offering."

"No problem." Link snapped open his shoulder bag and removed a small tube of what looked like very expensive facial cream. Zelda didn't recognize the brand.

"People are always giving me things. I might be developing a hoarding problem, but I'm not complaining. I should probably return the favor by promoting their products or something."

"I wouldn't worry about it. I think they just like your face."

"Of course they do, and I – "

Link was interrupted by his ringtone, which was set to a surprisingly high volume. He frowned and checked his phone before silencing it and slipping it back into his bag.

"You know what, it's been a long day for me too," he admitted, brushing his bangs out of his eyes. "I've gotten several calls this morning from an unlisted number that doesn't leave a message or text me. It's weird. It's not like my contact info is public, you know? You're the only person I've given my number to recently. Not that you ever call. You should pick up your phone and come out someone."

Zelda ignored his comment. The last thing she needed was to go out drinking with a stranger, especially since she didn't have much money. After what she'd seen this morning, though, she could use a drink. She decided to text Riju after lunch, but she didn't know Link well enough to invite him. Perhaps one day, but not today. She changed the subject.

"Maybe you have a stalker."

"If only. I _wish_ I had a stalker. Preferably a handsome one. But I'm just _too_ beautiful. It drives people away. I do my best to put myself out there, but it's not like anyone is breaking down my door."

At the mention of breaking down doors, Zelda suddenly recalled the grotesque face of the man who had barged into her apartment. Had he been wearing some sort of mask, or was that his actual skin? Had she really tried to give him a bath? In her own shower? How had she not run away screaming?

"Zelda?" Link looked at her with concern. "Are you okay?"

Zelda considered telling Link about her encounter earlier that morning, but she didn't know how to explain it, or whether she should even try. She didn't have much experience confiding in people. She hadn't had many friends in school, or rather, she wasn't allowed to have friends in school. She was constantly monitored then, and she might still be now. Even if she wasn't, how much could she tell him? Everything? Where would she even begin? With the visions she experienced as a child?

Link was one of the few good things in her life, a sign that her fresh start away from home could be successful. She didn't want to damage their relationship before it even started. It was probably better if she didn't mention the giant hairy man in her shower whom she may or may not have hallucinated.

Still, there was something about Link that made her feel as though she could trust him. When he expressed concern for her, it wasn't oppressive or overbearing, and he didn't seem to want anything from her. Maybe she didn't have to tell him everything _exactly_ as it happened, but she could still use some advice.

"Thanks, but I'm fine," she said. "I just overslept and didn't get my morning coffee. But I have a question for you. Are you familiar with the name Ganondorf?"

Link thought for a moment before smiling and shaking his head. "Nope," he answered. "That's an odd name. I'd remember it if I'd heard it before." He paused and added, "Is he cute?"

Zelda considered the seven feet of slime-coated scars and muscle that had crawled out of her nightmares and shattered her morning. "No, 'cute' isn't the word I'd use."

"Having an important conversation, are we?" Zelda's supervisor, a Zora with sharp eyes and an even sharper tongue, interrupted her.

"Just a quick chat," Zelda responded with a sheepish smile.

"Get back to work, then," the woman said, not unkindly. "Nobody's paying the delivery boy to gossip with everyone in our lab. Hylia knows what they _do_ pay him for. Get on with you, then."

Link shot her a rakish grin but then frowned and stuck his hand into his bag. Whoever was calling him must be at it again. Zelda felt sick as she watched him walk away. Her intuition had always been keen, and she had an awful feeling about this. If someone had managed to get under Link's skin, they couldn't be anything but bad news.


	9. Chapter 9

**In which Ganondorf is properly outfitted.**

* * *

"Wait, I think I've got it!" Link exclaimed, pressing his finger to his temple and closing his eyes for dramatic effect. "You were the prince of a distant kingdom, but an evil witch was jealous of your beauty and cursed you to sleep for a thousand years."

Ganondorf couldn't understand every word Link said, but he was getting better at navigating the steady stream of his banter. It helped him to imagine that Link was speaking with a strong accent. He had managed to assemble a decent amount of vocabulary, and he counted himself fortunate that the grammar of Link's language resembled the dialect of Hylian he was already familiar with. He wasn't yet able to mimic Link's pronunciation, but that would require time and no small amount of practice.

"It is so," he agreed. "I was a most beautiful prince, in sleep for many years."

"_Asleep_ for many years," Link corrected him.

Ganondorf nodded. "Only a kiss could wake."

"Sorry, not buying it." Link shook his head. "That doesn't seem right. Let's try again."

Link walked in silence for a moment before launching into another theory. "Do you think you were abducted by aliens? Because I was watching this video on Naviscreen the other night, and…"

Ganondorf allowed the wave of words to wash over him. Link would continue to talk regardless of whether he responded, and it took too much concentration to participate in whatever game he was playing while still tracking their route through the city. As they walked, Ganondorf watched person after person look at Link and smile, only to then catch sight of him and avert their gaze. He resented the slippery glances and downcast eyes, but he'd resigned himself to this sort of treatment. Link was young and fashionably dressed, and it was only natural that people would be drawn to him. He himself was no exception. Ganondorf didn't fully understand the sequence of events that resulted in Link turning up at Zelda's apartment and ushering him out into the bright light of the afternoon. All he knew was that he had begun experimenting with the device Zelda left behind, and it had somehow connected him to Link.

_A computer_, he thought. _It's called a computer._

He'd spent hours brewing and drinking pot after pot of tea and attempting to puzzle out the secrets of the glowing screens, all the while inputting the sequence of numbers attached to Link's name on every panel that contained numbers. He hadn't recognized the young man who eventually arrived at Zelda's door, but he still felt a vague emotional connection to him.

"That's okay, you don't have to answer that," Link said, continuing a line of reasoning that Ganondorf had lost somewhere along the way. "It's none of my business, really. I don't know Zelda that well, to be honest. She never struck me as someone who would just bring people home out of the goodness of her heart, so she must have had some reason to take you in. I don't know where she found you, but I trust her judgment. And really, I would do anything to help her. She's special, that one. I can't explain why, but I can feel it."

"Yes," Ganondorf responded. He didn't catch everything Link said, but Zelda was indeed special. Most people harbored a small spark of magical energy, but Zelda burned like the sun. Did Link truly not understand why she was different from other people? How could that be possible? Could he not sense her power?

"All right, we're here!" Link announced, coming to a stop in front of a store with large picture windows. "Hold on, I want to get a snapshot before we go in."

Link withdrew his phone from his pocket. He tapped it a few times and held it in front of his face, watching the screen as he adjusted his bangs. He then positioned himself in front of a star decal on the store's main display window and flashed a winning smile before snapping the shutter several times.

"Come over here and get a picture with me," Link invited, gesturing for Ganondorf to join him.

Ganondorf scowled in response. He didn't understand what Link was doing, but he didn't want anything to do with it.

"Oh, sorry. Of course. How silly of me," Link apologized as he typed, tapping the screen of his phone rapidly. "Everybody likes looking at 'before and after' pictures, but nobody likes being in one. We can wait until we get you kitted out. You're a handsome guy. My feed is going to explode once I post you in a nice shirt. Or shirtless? Your call."

Ganondorf's scowl deepened. He still had no idea what Link was talking about, but it sounded stupid to him. His "feed" was going to "explode"? What did that even mean? Why was someone like Zelda friends with this boy?

The door opened, and a solidly built man with a trim black beard stuck his head out.

"Link!" he called out. "I was wondering when I would see you again. Come on in, the lightning is better inside. And bring your friend with you. He is _more_ than welcome."

"Purlo is the person I was telling you about earlier," Link explained as he held the door open for Ganondorf. The cool interior was a relief after the oppressive summer humidity, and the soft lighting did indeed enhance the beauty of the clothing on display. Ganondorf had assumed that Link's acquaintance was simply giving away old clothing. Meanwhile, Purlo was already walking through the store and throwing shirts over his arm. Ganondorf couldn't afford to draw attention to himself at this point, and he needed to leave before this – whatever _this_ was – became a situation.

"No rupees," he hissed at Link.

"Don't you or your gorgeous hair worry about money," Purlo assured him. "I owe a lot to Link and his lovely little social media empire, and no friend of his owes me a thing. All I ask is that you let him take a few pictures, hmm? When he posts you in decent clothing, it is going to be a _sensation_. This boy's feed has been dry for a while, and it could use some hydration."

"The thirst is real," Link agreed, blithely ignoring Purlo's attempt to tease him.

"Now take off that tracksuit jacket," Purlo said, handing a pile of shirts to Link. "It's an embarrassment."

Ganondorf couldn't deny that this was true, but he didn't appreciate Purlo's tone. Zelda had given the jacket to him, and he felt strangely protective of it, cheap though it was. Regardless, he needed to be able to dress like an adult if he wanted to have any chance of figuring out what had happened to him, so he did as he was told.

"Oh my." Purlo whistled. "Do you just walk around looking like that? I should be paying _you_. Now be a dear and try on the orange. It will make that gorgeous complexion of yours shine like the sun."

Ganondorf bristled at Purlo's overfamiliarity. He wanted to counter with the observation that Purlo's green blazer wasn't doing anything for his own complexion, but he kept his thoughts to himself and accepted the button-down shirt Link offered. It was a mellow shade of hydromelon orange, and fine strands of silvery filament were incorporated into the loose weave of its thread. The fabric was soft and light and smelled freshly starched. Ganondorf hesitated to put it on. Nothing came without a price, and he couldn't be certain that he wasn't being taken advantage of.

"It's okay for you to take it," Link said, misreading his hesitation. "The word on the street is that Purlo is the guy who invented Tinglr. He probably just runs this shop as a hobby. I hear he's loaded."

"Now who would go and say such a thing?" Purlo winked at them and made no attempt to deny the rumor.

Ganondorf resented having to rely on the charity of strangers, but he didn't have much of a choice. Despite his irritation, he decided to tolerate whatever private amusement Link and Purlo were deriving from this process. If they wanted to record his image, so be it. Sacrifices must be made for fashion.

Ganondorf went through a rainbow of shades, from teal to saffron to aubergine, before his patience began to fray dangerously thin. He made a point of selecting an outfit and then, after allowing Link to take several pictures, waved the phone away with a stern look.

"What a godsend you are," Purlo purred as he rehung a small pile of discarded shirts. "I've kept inventory in Gerudo sizes just waiting for a _voe_ like you to walk through the door. You must make sure to tag me on _everything_," he added with a pointed glance at Link, who was already typing on his phone. "Now that you look like a human being, all we need to do is get rid of that ghastly thing you wore in off the street. I keep a bin out back for that very purpose," he said, making a motion to pick up the polyester tracksuit jacket.

"Do not dare touch it," Ganondorf snarled, surprising himself with the force of his words. Purlo rolled his eyes, shrugged, and walked away, but Link looked up from his phone with a startled expression.

Ganondorf realized that, in his possessiveness over the clothing Zelda had given him, he'd revealed a part of himself that he hadn't intended for anyone to see. He'd been foolish to allow himself to demonstrate raw emotion like that. He had a feeling that Link was far more perceptive than he let on. He would have to be careful in the future.

The shadow on Link's face dissipated just as quickly as it had gathered. "It's a nice tracksuit," he said with a shrug, "and it fits. You should definitely keep it. I mean, honestly, you should see the clothes I wear when I go running. They're probably older than I am. Hey, you know what? Let's go jogging together tomorrow morning! You're not staying with Zelda, right? Why don't you spend the night at my place? I have a sofa with your name on it."

Ganondorf still didn't trust Link, but his options were limited. His main concern was figuring out who he was and what Zelda had done to him, and he would need to save his strength as he marshaled whatever resources were available to him. In the meantime, he needed to eat, as well as a place to sleep. At the moment he had little choice but to allow himself to be swept along by whatever current he'd become caught up in. Link seemed to enjoy being helpful and solving problems, and Ganondorf knew he'd continue to carry on like this as long as he did nothing to stop him. Being dependent on another person gave him a palpable sense of unease, but he refused to go back to Zelda. His instinct for survival told him that it would be dangerous to confront her without a better understanding of his situation.

"You never invite _me_ over," Purlo pouted.

"You know what you did," Link responded. Turning to Ganondorf, he explained, "He came to one of my parties wearing a bright green bodysuit, stoned out of his mind. He was throwing around glitter, saying he'd invented some sort of magic spell. It took months to get the apartment clean."

"Maybe I can get an invite from the big guy, then. What's your Skyloft handle, handsome?"

"He doesn't have a phone," Link answered before looking up at Ganondorf and grinning. "Yet."


	10. Chapter 10

**In which Zelda reflects on the nature of a power she can no longer deny.**

* * *

A week passed uneventfully.

When Zelda returned home after her nightmare of a morning, there was nothing to indicate that anyone had been in her apartment. Her door was unlocked, but it hung neatly on its hinges and showed no signs of having been forced open. There were no charred footprints on her floor and no tarry slime in her bathroom. The towel she had put out was clean, as were the dishes, which were stacked neatly in their proper places. Her refrigerator was almost completely empty, but this may very well have been her own doing. Her appetite tended to fluctuate since she stopped taking her medication, and she occasionally caught herself eating more than she used to, sometimes without noticing at all.

During the past several weeks, she'd often had occasion to wonder whether it was really necessary to throw away her pills. She had enough training in organic chemistry to understood the principle of how such things worked, after all, and she knew the medication necessary to treat certain conditions required time and consistency to work properly. It was important for people with various psychiatric disorders to continue taking their medication, of course, even if they felt fine in the moment. Zelda understood this, and she knew the pills she'd taken every day since she was a girl were effective. Her vivid dreams hadn't stopped, but she no longer experienced visions during the day.

The problem was that she hadn't been able to figure out what her medication _was_, not even with five years and a graduate degree's worth of access to her university's lab equipment and research library. The chemical components of the tablets she was given weren't even remotely similar to those of any existing medicine she could find. She considered the possibility that they were some sort of herbal concoction, or perhaps a remarkably sophisticated placebo, but her investigations into these possibilities had yielded no results.

The only thing left to try was to stop taking the pills altogether, but her father's staff alerted him immediately when she skipped a day. She would receive a stern warning from him, as well as a lengthy lecture from a high-ranking Sheikah officer named Impa, who had been tasked with managing her personal security since she was a teenager. Both Impa and her father would say the same thing: Do you want things to go back to the way they were in the hospital?

She did not, in fact. Still, truth be told, she'd been very young when she was hospitalized, and she couldn't remember many concrete details of the experience. Her only memories of that time were wrapped in a haze of pain and accompanied by a parade of vivid images that couldn't possibly have been real. She recalled something like a dark passage underground, a cave with high ceilings and subterranean pools of dark water. There were strange paintings on the walls, and swirling lights that looked almost like letters. No, it couldn't have been real, especially since her nightmares had seemed as real as her waking life at the time.

The only sure thing Zelda knew about her hospital stay is that it had lasted more than a year. Once she recovered, she had to be homeschooled for another year before she was quietly enrolled in a private school for the children of diplomats. Her classmates came and went practically every month, it seemed, and only she remained behind. Zelda was shy to begin with, and not many people bothered to talk to her. They all had their own circles of friends made up of other children they knew from other elite schools, and later people they met at shows and house parties around the city. Zelda made a few attempts to sneak out when she was older, but she was always caught, if not by her Sheikah escort then by tabloid journalists. She was constantly being told not to exert herself, and she never made the friends or memories that most people associated with being a teenager. Her father had discouraged her from studying abroad or applying to college early, and she couldn't do much of anything without his financial backing. She didn't bother to attend her graduation, since it didn't seem like anything worth celebrating.

Zelda didn't escape into books the ways another child in her situation might have, and she learned quickly that anything she wrote or posted online would be monitored by the staff in charge of her care. She wanted to know more about the world, and she wanted to be normal – or as close to normal as someone with her family background could get. She was accepted into a prestigious university within the city and performed brilliantly in her classes. Unfortunately, everyone knew who her father was, and she was accompanied by a near-constant Sheikah escort that made it difficult for anyone to approach her. Practically the only person who talked to her was Riju, but Riju was a princess, after all.

Zelda had Riju to thank for helping her leave home and giving her a place to stay while she went through the process of changing her name, looking for a job, and leasing an apartment. She would have been happy to stay with Riju for longer, but she needed a place of her own.

It had been her family's resistance to any move toward independence that convinced her to leave in the first place. She understood that she couldn't be a liability for her father's political career, and she'd had enough bad experiences with unethical journalists and online trolls to know that anything she said or did could be twisted and used against her father. Nevertheless, his idea of "protection" went too far, and no one on his staff – not even Impa – was her ally. Zelda gradually developed a fierce resentment of everyone's insistence that she was weak and needed to be protected. Even if this weren't condescending and borderline abusive, it simply wasn't true.

If this were all there was to her story, she might have been content to allow herself to be groomed for the role of her father's political aide, which seemed to be his intention. Her situation was almost like a fairy tale – a young woman from a powerful family is kept in a gilded cage and yearns for freedom. Zelda's father wasn't evil or stupid, however, nor was Impa. Both Impa and her father were successful precisely because they could see matters clearly and didn't delude themselves with fantasies of how they wished other people would behave, and it couldn't have escaped their notice that Zelda was exceptionally strong and healthy. Her good health was almost supernatural, in fact. Despite the dreams and the visions and the hospital stay and the pills, Zelda had never been sick a day in her life.

Zelda's university work focused on biology and chemistry, but the required history classes she took with Riju forced her to rethink the memories she had almost forgotten. It seemed impossible – it _must_ be impossible – but she had once been able to do magic. Not card tricks or other sleights of hand, but _real_ magic, magic that transformed the world around her and filled her with an incredible sense of power.

One of her first memories was of stretching upwards to pick up an apple. It was on top of a counter that was too high for her to reach, but she was able to envision a hand, much larger than her own, scooping up the apple and placing it neatly into her cupped palms. This seemed exactly like the sort of magical thinking a child would indulge in, but Zelda had never been given to flights of fancy. She knew that this had been real. She remembered the sweet taste of the apple, and the soft and comforting light of the hand, and her delight in the sensation of _stretching_. It was as if she had been set free in an open field, and she could run forever.

Whatever she might have done, however, she had forgotten how to do it. Zelda even harbored a suspicion that it might be more accurate to say that she had been _made_ to forget how to do it.

There were documented accounts of historical figures performing magic as recently as the turn of the last century, but such records abruptly ceased when the last scion of Hyrule's royal family abdicated her throne and relinquished her political privilege. This was partially a result of primitive superstitions evaporating in the light of modern rationality, but it was possible that there could be a more complicated explanation hiding under the dusty surface of the dry historical documents. A great deal of scientific progress had been made even during her own lifetime, and it might be that science could be used to understand what had happened in the past.

If nothing else, Zelda's dreams wouldn't let her forget what it felt like for magic to rush from her mind into the world around her. She still dreamt of magic, and sometimes she had marvelous abilities in her nightmares as well. During the past week her dreams had been especially vivid, but they still vanished when she woke up. Regardless of what the truth of magic might be, dreams were just dreams, and Zelda could almost believe that her monstrous visitor had been nothing more than a dream as well.

Unfortunately, there was the matter of the recent news reports.

There had been an unseasonable heatwave the day her monstrous visitor appeared, and that night the city had been hit by a major storm, with lightning and thunder and hail lasting for hours. The storm resulted in major damage throughout the greater metro area, but the weather couldn't account for everything. Electric lines had not just fallen but had been _cut_ all across the city, and a number of storefronts and public monuments had been defaced and destroyed. This could have been the work of an especially aggressive team of vandals, but there was also a violent break-in at the city government offices that had resulted in the demolition of the main entrance of the central building. A subway tunnel had collapsed, and one of the most prominent downtown skyscrapers had to be condemned after its foundation sustained major structural damage. This was the sort of destruction that could only have been caused by an earthquake, but there had been no earthquake, only repeated accounts of something terrible in the shadows, a hideous lurching thing with glowing eyes and far too many legs.

One person couldn't have been responsible for such an enormous degree of destruction, but the man who appeared at the door of her apartment hadn't been human. She tried to forget him, as she had forgotten so many things during her childhood, but his face haunted her dreams.

In her dreams, Hyrule burned.


	11. Chapter 11

**In which Ganondorf begins to exert his will on the world.**

* * *

Using a computer came to him naturally. When he discovered the hidden language of numbers and symbols underneath the operating system of Link's spare laptop, he felt at home with the glowing black screen and harsh white characters; it was like remembering something he'd known long ago.

The language was more difficult, but he learned quickly. Link was always willing to talk, and Ganondorf made a habit of repeating what he said and how he said it, which Link seemed to find amusing. Link enjoyed the way that Ganondorf pronounced words, and he would type strange sentences onto the screen of his phone and ask Ganondorf to read them out loud. Ganondorf had no doubt that Link was recording his voice and posting it online, but this didn't bother him. He was making good progress in mimicking the tones and inflections of the newscasters on the state broadcasting channel, and he would be able to speak without an accent soon enough.

Ganondorf resented having to rely on another person, but Link himself was difficult to dislike. He was extroverted and almost inhumanly friendly, and he attracted smiles everywhere he went. He was charmingly enthusiastic about cooking but terrible at it, so Ganondorf made meals for the both of them, mastering the appliances in Link's kitchen with the same acuity that he demonstrated with the laptop.

He spent his days and nights finding his way around the internet. It frustrated him at first, but he soon learned to navigate as rapidly as he could read. He searched for himself everywhere, clicking through pages of Navi results before eventually finding his way onto enormous databases that weren't connected to any search engines but weren't locked behind any sort of security protection either. As far as Ganondorf could tell, however, he did not exist.

With no viable alternative, he assembled an identity for himself. It wasn't difficult, nor was it difficult to create a bank account and a credit line. The long-dormant accounts of the dead held obscene and unspeakable wealth. The physical substance of this wealth was surely hidden behind a complicated system of locks and keys, but on the internet he was able to reach his hands through walls as softly and quietly as a ghost. The registers of the recently deceased were readily available, and this sort of digital necromancy required no great skill. The channels of information Ganondorf accessed were underground, it was true, but they were shallow.

Power – true power, the ability to sway people's hearts and minds – was difficult to achieve and required time and careful groundwork. Money was much easier to manipulate. Once you had money, no one bothered to ask where it came from.

Within a week he'd secured a job. Link had observed his facility with computers and offered to introduce him to a friend who could find him a position in tech support, but Ganondorf refused to demean himself. He would serve an employer only inasmuch as it conferred an air of legitimacy, and he insisted on selecting this employer himself. Ganondorf checked Link's route on the Beedlenet server every morning, and he accompanied him when he was scheduled to make deliveries to the banking offices downtown. He wore the suit Purlo tailored for him and did not bother with a card, sharing only his name and phone number via wireless transmission. Between his accent and his confidence, no one asked for references.

Link did not question this, nor did he question why Ganondorf was able to access the Beedlenet server. Ganondorf found this level of trust suspicious. Link was much cleverer than he let on, and Ganondorf couldn't say for certain that Link hadn't figured out what he was doing during the hours he spent online. If this was the case – and Ganondorf strongly suspected it was – then Link must have some motive underlying his discretion, and he didn't yet know Link well enough to ascertain what that might be. As much as he enjoyed Link's company, he could no longer stay in the same apartment without exposing himself to closer scrutiny.

Link had a wide circle of acquaintances, and Ganondorf accepted his offer to make use of this network to find lodging close to the investment firm that employed him. Unlike Link's walk-up, which was inconveniently located but spacious and airy, Ganondorf's apartment wasn't much better than Zelda's. It was arguably worse, and he resented how it was little more than a cell. He deserved better, and he resolved that he would have it, in time.

Within two weeks he had earned enough to pay Link back for the smartphone and laptop he borrowed, and he refunded him for the deposit on the apartment. He would be able to afford a better arrangement soon, but he decided it was better to keep a low profile until he could establish a more stable identity. The fabrication he'd pieced together had served him well thus far, but it would be ideal if the identity he assumed as he moved through the world were his own.

He kept himself so busy that he barely slept, but in the odd quiet moment his thoughts returned to Zelda. What had she done to him? Link didn't seem to believe she was dangerous, but he may have had his own reasons for befriending her. Ganondorf had taken the chance of asking about Zelda, but Link's answer was noncommittal. It was strange that Link never brought her up in conversation. It might simply be that it was too awkward for Link to ask what Ganondorf had been doing without any clothing of his own in Zelda's apartment, but Ganondorf's impression of Link was that he had never done or said anything awkward in his life. Link would talk about anything else with complete openness, and Ganondorf began to feel that he was simply waiting for him to reveal the nature of his relationship with Zelda on his own.

Ganondorf also began to realize that it may have been foolish to assume that Link was unaware of Zelda's magic. Link had no magic himself, so he may not have known exactly why Zelda was special, but he seemed to be attempting to protect her in some way. Ganondorf had been careful not to bring Zelda up in conversation again. From what he'd been able to gather, no one could possibly have known the extent of her power.

Discussions of magic in general seemed to be a strong cultural taboo, and Ganondorf kept his own talents concealed. His working theory was that there was some sort of resonance between Zelda's magic and his own. Because of this resonance, she had been able to manipulate his memory, sealing it in some way for reasons of her own. Perhaps he had seen or discovered something that she wanted to keep secret. It might even be the case that not even she understood what she had done. Based on the sorry state of her clothing and apartment, she must have been trying to keep a low profile, just as he was. This made Ganondorf even more wary of her, but he knew he would have to confront her eventually. He needed to know what she had done to him.

In the meantime, he spent every hour working, and bending his circumstances to fit the shape of his will required intense concentration. He was not content to remain nameless to the world, and there was no point in wasting time in idle speculation about a woman whom it would be unwise to confront before he could face her as an equal.


	12. Chapter 12

**In which Zelda has a troubling conversation with Riju.**

* * *

Riju was the very personification of elegance, even in the black tracksuit she wore to meet Zelda after work. She was shown to the best table on the café's garden patio as soon as she walked through the door. The server who seated them barely glanced at Zelda, who trailed along behind Riju in a cheap pair of sunglasses she got at the pharmacy, but that suited her just fine. It was always like this when she went out with Riju.

"So," Riju said after a server interrupted their conversation to bring another glass of voltfruit juice. "Why did you invite me out?"

"Do I need a reason?" Zelda asked. She'd barely touched her tea, and she forced herself to take a sip.

"Of course not," Riju replied, "but I know you. You never do anything without a reason."

Zelda didn't know how to respond. She took another sip of tea.

"Not that I blame you," Riju continued. "The way you were raised should be a crime. Is it treason to say that I want to smack your father right in his stupid face? Some people really shouldn't be allowed to have children. He's a nice guy and all, but you know."

Zelda nodded. She did know. She would never say so out loud, but she agreed with Riju's assessment of how her father had handled her upbringing. The way she was treated seemed only natural to her when she was younger, but she'd begun to question a number of the choices her father had made. She also appreciated that Riju was trying to give her an opening into a conversation, but it wasn't her family she wanted to talk about.

"All right," she began. "I need to ask you a question. It's a bit weird, but I'm being serious."

"The answer is 'yes.' I will absolutely marry you. My mothers have been trying to get me to set a date for years now."

Zelda smiled but didn't allow herself to be sidetracked. "No, listen, it's about the name 'Ganondorf.' It sounds like a stupid fantasy name…"

"Says the girl named Zelda."

"…but is there any chance it might be a Gerudo name?"

Riju laughed and shook her head. "It's definitely not a Gerudo name."

"I didn't think so, but it's not a Hylian name either, and…" Zelda trailed off as she realized that she didn't quite know what she meant to ask.

"Why are you asking about Ganondorf?"

"Do you know him?"

"You could say that."

"Oh, thank Hylia," Zelda said, relieved. "I thought I made him up."

A strange expression surfaced on Riju's face. "Why would you think that?" she asked.

"Because he just showed up in my apartment, and then he vanished. I've met Gerudo men before, of course, but never, you know, a _voe_. The entire encounter was so weird, and I can't even begin to describe…"

Zelda found herself at a loss for words as she recalled the monster that had appeared in her doorway. There was no way she could explain what he looked like to Riju, and she cursed herself for bringing him up. She knew Riju didn't think she was crazy, but there was no way to tell this story without sounding like something was wrong with her. Her first instinct was to brush the matter off and change the subject, but she wanted to find out what Riju knew.

"Wait, hold up." A deep crease appeared between Riju's eyebrows. "You're telling me a Gerudo man showed up at your apartment? Calling himself Ganondorf? And he was an actual _voe_? You're sure about that?"

"I'm quite sure." Zelda could feel herself blush as she remembered the man in her shower. He had been about as _voe_ as a _voe_ could get.

"That is some shit. If I didn't already know you're incapable of lying to me, I'd say you're lying to me."

"I don't understand. You said you knew Ganondorf."

Riju leaned forward and lowered her voice. "Not a lot of people know this, but Ganondorf is the name of the man who became Ganon. This isn't the sort of thing you'd find on Hylian Navi, but no Gerudo would name her child Ganondorf. And definitely no Gerudo would decide to call themselves by that name, not unless they were seriously fucked in the head."

"But that makes no sense," Zelda objected. "Ganon couldn't possibly have been a man. Surely I of all people would know if such a person existed. And besides, the thing, I mean, the _person_ who showed up at my apartment was our age."

Riju's frown vanished as her expression grew thoughtful. "I don't doubt that something happened to you, but I think there's something you're not telling me."

"I'm not sure I can tell you the whole story. Like I said, I was afraid I made the whole thing up, or saw it in a dream. Or that it was a hallucination. Or something."

"I don't like it when you use the word 'hallucination.' That's not how hallucinations work, and no offense, but I don't think you could make something like that up. Have you considered that you may have seen a vision?"

"What does that mean?"

"It means I should go home and talk to your mother. Do you want to come?"

"Absolutely not."

"Come on, Zelda. You're an adult, and she's your mother. I don't understand what your damage is."

"Riju, we've talked about his. My mother abandoned me when I was in the hospital, and she never wrote or tried to get in contact with me after that. I can't pretend like all of that didn't happen, like we actually have a relationship. If you hadn't told me about her, I wouldn't even know she's still alive."

"I get that, really I do, but there's actually a lot you don't know."

Zelda was starting to become annoyed. "Such as what, exactly?"

"It would be better if you spoke to her yourself, but fine. If you're going to go around saying the name 'Ganondorf' out loud, then I might as well be the one to tell you. You inherited your mother's magical abilities, and your father's family forced her to leave Hyrule so that she wouldn't pass anything on to you. The way she talked about it made it seem like your family thinks magic is contagious. Which is one of the most ignorant things I've ever heard in my life, by the way. Like I said, sometimes I really want to slap some sense into your father."

Zelda stared at Riju, unable to process what she was saying.

"And it's a shame," Riju continued, "because you're probably really talented. We should stop talking about this, because who knows what sort of Sheikah gestapo are lurking around, but it's time you got out of Hyrule. I don't know why you insist on staying here, honestly. Why don't you come home with me to Lanayru sometime? Just for a few days? You're so smart, but you need to see the world outside Hyrule. I think you'd understand more about yourself if you could spend some time in a place where there's not a bizarre prohibition against magic. I like Hyrule a lot, but this place is so _backwards_ about things like that."

Riju shook her head in a gesture of dismay and then drained her glass. Zelda, not knowing how to respond, watched her without saying anything. She was suddenly very thirsty, but her tea had grown cold and murky. Riju looked at her, looked at the film on the surface of her tea, and flagged down a server to order gin and tonics.

"Just talking about this makes me thirsty," she said, offering Zelda an apologetic smile. "I know you don't have a passport, but I can get you a diplomatic visa. How soon do you think you can take a week off from work?"

"You'll have to excuse me. I need to use the bathroom," Zelda said abruptly as she pushed her chair back from the table. The grating of the iron legs against the concrete was harsh in her ears.

"Take your time," Riju replied, already reaching for her phone.

Zelda could hear the tap of Riju's nails on the screen as she stepped into the cool interior of the café. She loved Riju like a sister, but sometimes Riju just didn't get it. There was no way she could afford to take time off from her job. She'd just started, for one thing, and the rent wouldn't pay itself.

She didn't know what to make of what Riju had told her. When she heard the words spoken in Riju's level and confident voice, saying these things as if she took them for granted, it seemed obvious that Hyrule's taboo against magic was unnecessary and illogical. That would explain a lot, actually. The reason why Zelda left the conversation before she said something she'd regret wasn't because she was startled by the revelation that magic was "real." On the contrary, she was upset because she had known this all along. Zelda was on the verge of tears, but not because of any sense of loss or regret. She was furious.


	13. Chapter 13

**In which Ganondorf's confrontation with Zelda does not unfold in the manner he expected.**

* * *

"Zelda."

Ganondorf waited for her to answer. He was prepared to spend all evening waiting if need be. He knew she was inside her apartment. He'd watched her enter through the front door of the building not ten minutes ago. Loitering outside a woman's home in order to follow her inside was unsavory behavior, to say the least. He found it distasteful, but he had to confront her. If he could convince her to explain what she'd done to him, perhaps he could reverse the damage. If he couldn't persuade her, he would have to use force.

"Zelda," he said again. "Let me in. I want to talk."

She would answer him eventually. She had no choice, just as he had no choice but to come here.

He heard her footsteps on the bare floorboards as she walked to the door. The dimly lit hallway was deathly silent, and he could hear her breathing. She seemed to be on the verge of hyperventilation. Sweet Hylia, was _she_ frightened of _him_?

"I'm not going to hurt you," he assured her, hoping that he would be able to keep his word.

"Why are you here?" she asked from the other side of the door.

"I have questions."

"I'm not the person to answer them."

Although it put him at a disadvantage, Ganondorf decided to tell her the truth. "I think you're the only person who can."

He waited for her response.

The lock clicked, and Zelda opened the door. He knew she wouldn't invite him in, so stepped across the threshold before she could stop him.

"I don't know you, and I never met you before you showed up here. That was weeks ago. Why do you think I can tell you anything?" she demanded as she closed the door behind him.

"I don't know anything about myself but my name, and I don't remember anything that happened to me before I found myself standing naked in your shower. You did something to me, and I want to know why."

Zelda's face shifted. "No, _you_ suddenly showed up at _my_ apartment. You were absolutely filthy and speaking in a language I didn't understand. And yes, you're right – you were _completely_ naked when you broke down my door. Now you're here in a suit, asking _me_ to explain what happened to _you_? I let you in because I didn't want you causing a scene in the hallway. I've already told you everything I know, which is that I don't know anything. I don't want any trouble, and I think you should leave."

"That can't be true," Ganondorf objected. "You _must_ know me. I know _your_ name, which was the only thing I remembered besides my own. All I have is my name, your name, and the vague feeling that I was asleep for a long time before I woke up here. I had to spend the past few weeks learning your _language_, for Din's sake. I don't even know where I came from. Of all of the places in a city that's alien to me, I somehow ended up at your apartment. You summoned me. Why?"

"I summoned you? I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't play dumb with me. I can sense your power."

"My power? I don't have anything like that." Her eyes darted away from him.

"It won't do you any good to lie to me." He grabbed her hand and held it in his, opening a channel between them that allowed him to access her magic. The contact caused a brilliant white light to erupt from her fingers.

Ganondorf flung her hand back at her. "Don't tell me you don't have power."

Zelda looked at her hand with wide eyes and then looked back at him.

"How did you do that?" she whispered.

Ganondorf's scowl fell from his face as he realized that her question was sincere.

"You genuinely don't know."

"I remember doing this as a child, or something like it, but I always thought I must have been imagining it, and… Who _are_ you?"

"That's what I was hoping you could tell me."

Zelda didn't respond as she watched the light fade from her hand. She twisted her wrist from side to side and clenched her fist, but nothing happened. She thrust her hand back at him.

"Teach me how to do what you just did."

Her imperious tone filled Ganondorf with rage. He clutched her shoulder and pushed her back against the door. He seized her hand again and forced the channel between their magic open, bringing forth a light so bright that it drained the color from her face.

"Do not give me orders," he hissed. "If you don't know what you did to me, I'll find out myself. Your ignorance is no excuse. I will pick apart your mind if that's the only way to get what I want."

"I understand now," she said from underneath him, her voice devoid of emotion. "You're not real."

Ganondorf had harbored the same doubt himself. He didn't exist in records, and he didn't exist online. His name was a nonsense word that meant nothing. No one he met recognized him, and no one had come looking for him. May the gods help him, but it was almost as though he were nothing more than a fantasy that this woman had somehow brought to life. He needed to prove to Zelda that he was just as real as she was. He relaxed his grip on her hand and placed her palm on his chest, directly above his heart. He could feel her pulse on his skin though the fabric of his shirt. He moved her hand to his face, guiding her fingers along his jaw. She didn't flinch.

"I'm real," he said.

"I can see that." She swallowed, clearly frightened, but her eyes never left his. "But I need you to believe me when I say that I don't know who you are or what happened to you."

Ganondorf could sense she was telling the truth. The connection between them allowed him to understand that she truly couldn't explain what was going on. She was just as frustrated as he was, and she wanted answers to his questions just as badly as he did. She was suppressing it, but she was filled with an anger as profound as his own. He could also sense that there was something she was concealing from him, something important, but he couldn't fully grasp what it was. Nor, his intuition told him, could she. He could open the connection wider and push deeper into her, but it would hurt both of them if she resisted. There had to be a more efficient way to find what had been hidden from her.

"I believe you," he said. He released her hand, but she continued to hold it to his face, as if to convince herself that he was indeed real. She traced his lower lip with her thumb, and color returned to the world as the light emanating from her hand faded.

"I have a proposition for you," she said as she stepped away from him.

He retraced the path of her fingers across his face as he listened to what she had to say.

"I don't know what's going on, but I'd like to find out. I'll help you figure out what happened to you. In return, I want you to teach me magic."

A grin teased the corner of Ganondorf's mouth. Teach her magic? The notion was ridiculous, but it wouldn't be difficult to turn such a situation to his advantage. He'd assumed this woman was his enemy, but perhaps she didn't have to be. Perhaps she might even be useful to him. He had no way of knowing how useful, or for what purpose, but he had every intention of finding out.


	14. Chapter 14

**In which Zelda begins to play a dangerous game with Ganondorf.**

* * *

The rent was due and the rent was due and the rent was due, and that was all she could think about, how the rent was due.

Zelda fidgeted with her phone on the train home, trying to refresh her email and failing, knowing that it was useless in the reception dead zone of the tunnels underneath the city. It was a lost cause to begin with; no help was coming, no offer of a new job. She had been scrolling through listings for weeks, but she was too tired and stressed out to apply to anything. The situation with Ganondorf wasn't helping, and Riju kept insisting that they take a vacation together. Riju meant well, but Zelda was running out of ways to convince her to put her plans on hold. She wasn't making much as a lab assistant, and she didn't have a great deal of experience managing such a tight budget. Her landlord would probably grant her a grace period on the rent, but that was a conversation she didn't want to have. In the meantime, she needed something to do with her hands so her mind would stop spinning in circles. Her email continued not refreshing, so she eventually gave up and turned off the screen.

It startled her when her phone vibrated in her hand as she climbed the stairs up from the platform. She paused outside the station and looked at the notification, but she didn't understand what she saw. There was a message from RavioPay informing her that a transfer of 200,000 rupees was pending to her account. She apparently needed to log in to authorize the transaction. She swiped away the notification and checked her email, where a similar message was waiting for her. She scanned the text for the identity of the sender, but all she could find was a chain of digits. The account number and routing code, probably.

Zelda was so annoyed that she shut down her phone entirely. It had been a grueling day at work, and now she had to deal with a scam. RavioPay was notoriously difficult to contact, and she'd probably have to send photocopies of several documents to verify her identity if she wanted to report the incident. If she even bothered to do anything, that was. Whoever was trying to scam her could just take her bank account if they wanted it. It's not as if there was any money there to begin with.

Zelda didn't bother to change out of her work clothes when she got home. She kicked off her shoes in the foyer and slid open the glass door in the living room to let in fresh air before collapsing on the ratty sofa. The odor of the train lingered on her clothing, and she could smell the sweat on her face and neck. She should probably take a shower, but only after she rested.

She allowed her mind to wander as she stared out onto the small patch of dirt and grass that served as the backyard for her building. The sun was setting, and the fragments of broken glass scattered on the ground caught the light and shone like jewels. A dense mass of honeysuckle was making its riotous way across the derelict fence separating the yard of her building from the identical yard of the townhouse next door, and its smell was sweet and green. Someone was practicing guitar, and she could hear the faint jangle of a chord progression played over and over.

The remains of the afternoon were peacefully sinking into twilight, but Zelda felt ill at ease. There was something bothering her that went beyond her unpaid rent and the weird notification from RavioPay.

_That thing is coming_.

A voice seemed to be whispering directly into Zelda's ear, and she was too tired to pretend she didn't hear it. "What's coming?" she asked out loud. Not that she expected a response. She remembered having premonitions as a child. Sometimes she saw things in her dreams, and sometimes she heard voices telling her things she couldn't possibly know. Since she'd began taking her medication, however, she hadn't experienced anything even remotely resembling a premonition. Or, rather, that wasn't quite true. She'd felt the same sense of ill omen on the morning Ganondorf appeared. She resolved not to dismiss the voice as an auditory hallucination. If nothing else, she'd promised Riju that she would give the idea of magic the benefit of the doubt.

Zelda thought about calling Riju, but it felt like to much of a hassle to get up and retrieve her phone from her purse. Whatever was coming for her would just have to wait.

There was a knock on her door, almost as if on cue. Zelda had no intention of answering. Most of the apartments in the building were unoccupied, but she'd traded greetings with a few people in the entryway. It was probably one of the other tenants, or maybe even the landlord himself. She actually liked her landlord, a Goron who was beginning to get on in years, but she wasn't in the mood to chat. She'd left the advertising circulars in her mailbox in the outside corridor, so there was no indication that she was home. She remained motionless and tried not to breathe as she waited for whoever it was to go away.

"You didn't lock your door, Zelda."

Although his accent wasn't as distinct as she remembered, the voice in the hallway unmistakably belonged to Ganondorf. She jerked her head up from the couch cushion, catching one of her earrings on the weave of the fabric. It hurt, and she let out an ungraceful squawk of pain. So much for pretending she wasn't here.

"If you won't answer me, I'm going to let myself in."

Was he trying to be polite? Ganondorf was the last person she wanted to see right now, especially after he'd forced his way into her apartment last week, but Zelda knew it was useless to ignore him.

"I'd prefer it if you didn't," she called out, trying to untangle her earring. It wouldn't come loose, so she had to slip it out of her ear. No doubt her hair had pulled free from its bun in the process. That was just what she needed, to look like a crazy person when she confronted her stalker.

Zelda tripped over one of her discarded shoes but regained her balance before she opened the door. She'd been prepared to tell Ganondorf to fuck off, but her words died on her tongue when she saw him standing in front of her. His beard was neatly trimmed, and his hair was pulled back in a loose topknot. The dark suit he wore was immaculate, and Zelda briefly wondered how someone his size went about finding clothes that fit him so well before pushing the thought out of her mind.

Ganondorf's golden eyes gleamed. "Are you going to invite me in?"

"I don't think I should," Zelda responded as she opened the door and stepped out of his way. She watched his feet as he walked inside. He wore the most beautiful shoes she had ever seen on a man.

Ganondorf slipped past her and sat on the sofa where she'd just been lying. She half hoped he would sit on the back of her earring, but he spotted it and picked it up effortlessly before setting it down on the table without comment.

Zelda allowed the door to swing shut behind her. She had come to an arrangement with Ganondorf during their last conversation, but that didn't mean she had to like him. She hadn't expected him to show up today, and she didn't have the slightest intention of making him feel welcome.

"You certainly have a habit of inviting yourself in, don't you?" she snapped. "Why don't you tell me what you want so you can be on your way."

"I sent you a money transfer. I'd like you to accept it."

Zelda's surprise was short-lived and quickly superseded by annoyance. "You could have called before you came."

"Your phone was off."

"So you just showed up."

"I was in the neighborhood."

"You were no such thing. Explain yourself."

"I checked your balance. It's almost at zero. What I sent you should cover a few months' rent. You can't be paying much for this place."

"You checked my balance? That's criminal fraud. How did you hack into my bank account?"

"I didn't 'hack into your bank account.' You left a note with your username and password on your laptop, and I happened to see it and take it with me. You really shouldn't use the same password for every account."

"What gives you the right?"

"You're the only soul in Hyrule who knows anything about me. I don't want you to be in a position where you feel this information would be valuable to others."

"What makes you think I don't have money?"

Ganondorf made a sweeping gesture, indicating her living room. There were stains on the walls and cracks in the ceiling, and the bare floorboards were uneven. The glass of the sliding door was cloudy with age, and the garden beyond it was overgrown with weeds. The furniture inside was secondhand at best. Aside from a few books on a mostly empty shelf, there was nothing to indicate that someone actually lived here. Zelda was proud of her apartment, no matter how modest it was, but when she saw it through Ganondorf's eyes it looked small and shabby. She could only imagine how she herself looked to him, in cheap off-the-rack clothing and with one earring missing.

She was suddenly furious. "You need to leave."

"Offer me tea first."

"What."

"I said offer me tea. I'm a guest in your home."

"Make it yourself."

"That was my intention. You and Link are exactly alike. Both of you could burn water."

How did he know Link? And how did he know that Link was her friend? Link never spoke much about his personal life, and the fact that he knew Ganondorf was news to her. She'd have to call and ask him about it later, preferably after she changed all her passwords.

"Fine. Go make tea."

Ganondorf coughed and looked out into the yard. He knew he had gotten his way, but he had the good grace to seem embarrassed about it.

"How about a 'thank you?'" Zelda prompted.

"Thank you for giving me the privilege of serving you tea. Now get on your computer and accept the transfer. It will save us both a lot of trouble."

Zelda glared at him. How _dare_ he be so rude to her? She remembered what he looked like when he first came to her apartment, covered in horrifying scars that oozed with tarry black goo. She remembered his glowing eyes, and the hideous mask covering his face, and the way his body shifted every time she looked away from him. He was like something from one of her nightmares, or like one of the visions she had seen during her long hospital stay as a child.

If magic was real, however, then what she had seen while she was "sick" might be real too. For all she knew, Ganondorf could very well be a monster that had taken the shape of a man. She couldn't begin to imagine what his connection to the Great Calamity or the mythical demon Ganon might be, but that didn't necessarily mean he wasn't some sort of creature pretending to be a man. If it was indeed that case that he wasn't human, then his inability to communicate like a normal person might simply be a result of a cultural difference.

It was ridiculous to think about a demon suffering from culture shock, but he'd seemed to be in genuine distress when he came to her apartment, first as a monster and then as a man. She'd had her own experiences with culture shock in college, and it hadn't been easy for her to adjust to the lab where she worked now. If she were being honest with herself, she'd have to admit that she was still having trouble. Ganondorf wasn't speaking slowly or struggling to find words in the same way he was during his last visit to her apartment, but he sometimes pronounced certain words as though he'd only encountered them in a book.

Not that any of this excused the fact that he was stalking and possibly even threatening her. Zelda remembered the advice Riju had given after her failed attempts at dating in college, namely, that you can't expect other people to know what you want if you don't tell them. You have to set boundaries, and the people who can't be bothered to respect them aren't worth your time.

Unfortunately for her, the situation she'd managed to find herself in was on an entirely different level than an awkward date. The city was still trying to clean up the mysterious damage that occurred during the night Ganondorf appeared. It was on all her news feeds, and she didn't need to be online to know about the transit delays necessitated by the repairs to the subway. Thanks to whatever made one of the train tunnels collapse, she had to wake up almost half an hour earlier every morning. If Ganondorf was somehow connected to that "whatever," the danger he posed was far greater than a surly attitude. He seemed urbane enough, but she was afraid she was walking on thin ice over deep and dangerous water.

"Listen," she began, careful to keep her tone neutral, "I don't know why you know my name or how you found your way to my apartment, but we don't know each other. We're not friends. You can't just come here whenever you like and act like I owe you something because you stole my password and checked my bank account without my permission. I'm trying to be kind, but you're being creepy, and I'm not comfortable with whatever is going on here."

Ganondorf didn't seem offended by this accusation. He didn't seem the slightest bit ashamed either. "It was an emergency, and you're clearly struggling," he responded, as if this were a perfectly reasonable observation.

"I understand that we need to meet in private if we're going to discuss magic, but you need to call first if you want to come over."

"Fine."

Fine? Zelda had expected more resistance. In her experience, it was rare for people to take her seriously once she had made her expectations clear. She waited for Ganondorf to get defensive, but he only nodded.

"I'll call if I want to meet you. I tried to call you several times today, but you turned your phone off."

"You could have called more than ten minutes before you showed up."

"Your phone was off this morning as well, as well as most of yesterday. I sent you a message to call me, but you never read it, apparently. Is there some reason you turn your phone off?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"It's a valid question."

"It's _personal_."

"Forgive me for asking, then."

Zelda was taken aback by his apology, but she frowned as he continued.

"I have no desire to pry into your private life, and I apologize for running a background check on you without your permission, but you have to understand that this is a delicate situation. I have no memory of who I am, and I haven't been able to find any established identity associated with my name. I won't trouble you with the details, but my livelihood isn't strictly legal at the moment. I can't afford to waste time figuring out what happened, and that includes playing phone tag with you."

Zelda looked away. It still didn't excuse the fact that he had stalked her and stolen her password, but Ganondorf was right. She knew she was guilty of turning off her phone as a way of avoiding unpleasant situations. She also knew how much it annoyed people, but Ganondorf was the first person to say something. Still, just because it was true didn't mean she wanted to hear it from him.

"Fine. But I don't want to meet you every day."

"The feeling is mutual, but let's not dwell on it. What schedule would you like to set?"

What schedule would she like to set? Ganondorf's Hylian was still a little strange, and she wasn't sure what he meant, especially since he hadn't taken out his phone to check his calendar. He could mean a number of different things, but it would be awkward to ask. Between the two of them, Zelda thought, it was a wonder they were able to communicate at all.

"I can't say until I know what this entails," she said. "If you have enough time to come to my apartment, then you must not be busy. Why don't we start with this magic… thing… right now?"

"With pleasure. But first I'm going to make tea, and you're going to accept the transfer."

Zelda grimaced. Who did this man think he was? _Boundaries_, she reminded herself.

"I appreciate the offer, but I'm still uncomfortable accepting money from you. You're trying to exert your dominance over me."

"With that amount of money? Hardly." Ganondorf sneered. "I would never do something so crude."

Zelda could tell she'd insulted him, but she wasn't ready to let the matter drop.

"Whether you intended to or not, that's what you're doing."

"Is it?" Ganondorf stood and smoothed the creases from his pants before walking to the kitchen. "How about this – it's not my money. I skimmed it from the account of a client by failing to report a fractional gain on a significant sum during an infinitesimal period of time. It's the sort of thing no one would ever know about or even think to look for. Unless you were to tell them, of course."

After unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling up his sleeves, Ganondorf took out his phone and made a rapid series of taps on the screen. "I've sent you a link to the portfolio. It contains the contact information of the client's representative on the first page. Speak to them if you wish. It makes no difference to me, but perhaps that will help balance the scales of power in your mind."

Zelda considered his words as he turned on the faucet and filled the kettle. He removed the pot from the dish rack and put a spoonful of loose tea into the strainer. It was uncanny to watch him act as if he already knew his way around her kitchen. How did he know where everything was? It must not have been her imagination that he'd cleaned up after himself when she'd made him breakfast, then. But how could he remember the details of where she kept her tea and silverware? What sort of person possessed that level of recall? For that matter, how had he learned Hylian so quickly?

As Zelda watched Ganondorf make tea in her kitchen, she waited for him to do something that would reveal that he was something other than a normal Gerudo man. He moved with a surprising amount of grace, especially given that the small room wasn't designed for someone of his size, but there wasn't anything particularly demonic about him.

"That's not how this works," she finally said, picking the conversation back up. "The only thing you've done is to make me complicit in a crime you committed. That puts me even more in your power, and you know it."

"If you insist on seeing it that way, I won't argue," he replied, taking the kettle off the stove before the water boiled. "You'll just have to become more powerful than I am, won't you?"

Zelda listened for the voice she'd heard earlier, the whisper that told her something terrible was coming, but she only thing she could hear was the soothing sound of Ganondorf pouring hot water over the tea leaves. She was alone, and she had no one to rely on except herself. Still, if the man in her kitchen was real, then what she'd seen as a child in the hospital must be real as well. If that was the case, then Zelda could handle Ganondorf. After all, she'd faced much more terrifying monsters than he could ever hope to be.


	15. Chapter 15

**In which Ganondorf gives Zelda her first magic lesson.**

* * *

"Magic is something that everyone can do to a certain extent. It's like drawing or playing an instrument. Most children start with a few easy exercises, and only a few people bother to move beyond that. No matter how much natural talent someone might have, magic requires patience and training. Unless someone takes the time to develop their ability, it fades with disuse as they become accustomed to moving through the world without it."

Ganondorf had no memory of how he had come by his own skills, and he didn't have any recollection of being taught by anyone. He didn't know how he knew what he knew, but the explanation came to him naturally.

"I'm not sure I understand," Zelda interjected. "If magical ability is something that everyone has, how is it possible that no one knows about it?"

It was a fair question. Ganondorf had asked himself the very same thing any number of times. He'd developed several theories, none of them pleasant. Unless Zelda pressed him for details, he thought it best not to dwell on the subject.

"It might be akin to having the ability to program software if there are no computers," he answered. "You would never have any reason to know it was something you were capable of. You'd find another outlet for your talent, like engineering or architecture."

"But magic isn't like math. Wouldn't it manifest itself in some way? Wouldn't other people notice?"

"It would, and it would be noticed," he confirmed. If Zelda had arrived at the same conclusion, he may as well voice his own suspicion. "I can only assume that the children who demonstrate natural magical ability are silenced in some way. They may be encouraged to forget what they've done, or they could simply be made to disappear." He refrained from mentioning the Sheikah, but Zelda could draw her own conclusions.

"That's crazy."

"Are you crazy for having seen evidence of magic with your own eyes?"

Zelda seemed distressed. "I don't know."

"I can assure you that at least one of us is sane."

"That means a lot, coming the person who hacked my account and stalked me to my apartment."

Ganondorf was troubled by Zelda's transparent attempt to change the subject. "You don't seem to know who you are or what you're capable of."

Zelda gave him a sharp look. "Why would you say something like that?" she asked, the pitch of her voice rising. She was obviously upset, but he had no idea why her attitude had shifted so suddenly. It seemed that she was sensitive about the subject of her own sanity, but that made no logical sense. Based on what little he knew of her, she was nothing if not practical. It was possible that someone had managed to convince her that her ability wasn't real, but she was far too clever to fall prey to gaslighting. He remembered what he had sensed when he forged a channel into her magic, that she was hiding something from him that she didn't fully understand herself. Whatever she was trying to conceal was more than likely connected to what she had done to him, but that wasn't his priority at the moment.

"Drink your tea and calm down."

"Don't use that tone of voice with me."

"You're stalling by raising petty objections."

"This isn't a petty objection. I appreciate that you're trying to explain something to me, but I refuse to be patronized."

"I'm not – " he began, but he cut himself off. It would do no good to argue with her.

He would have to be more careful if he wanted to convince her to lower her guard. Intimidation wouldn't work, nor would the assertion of his authority. It would be much more effective to persuade her to become his ally if she felt that she were making the decision of her own accord. Like Link, she noticed things most people would take for granted or dismiss as unimportant, so it would probably be most effective to tell her the truth.

"Let me assure you that I have no wish to patronize you," he began again. "I'm simply frustrated by your ignorance, however unintentional it might be. Your magic places you in grave danger. You must know this on some level. You wouldn't have gone through such trouble to isolate yourself otherwise."

"I haven't isolated myself," Zelda objected. Ganondorf saw no reason to respond to such a self-evident lie.

He cleared his throat. "My association with you puts me in danger too. This neighborhood is crawling with Sheikah, and I wouldn't have risked attracting their attention if I didn't feel that it was necessary to contact you."

He hoped he had exposed enough of his own vulnerability to satisfy her. Judging by Zelda's face, she seemed to be taking the situation more seriously. Good. She did not like to be spoken to with disrespect, but neither did he.

"Have some tea, and I'll listen to what you have to say when I'm finished talking."

He raised his own cup and took a sip. Zelda glared at him but followed suit. The tea was still hot, and he'd managed to brew it well despite its poor quality. Everyone in this goddess-forsaken city let their tea steep until it was as bitter as coffee. If he taught this woman nothing else, he could at least ensure that she learned to make tea correctly.

"Even with training, most people only have enough magic to perform simple tasks," he said. "Household chores, really. Finding lost keys, helping a plant grow, summoning small objects from a distance. Forcing a car battery to start after you've left the headlights on, cleaning a stain on your shirt, healing a paper cut. Most people will never be able to affect the larger world. Even with a substantial education, almost no one is capable of the sort of fireworks display you see on…"

Ganondorf trailed off, unsure of how to describe the nonsense he would occasionally see in the advertisements for movies he stumbled across online. He had no interest in such things, which struck him as an egregious waste of time. Fantasy seemed especially ridiculous to him. If everyone had the power to launch a fireball by chanting a string of nonsense words, society would never have emerged from the dark ages.

"So you're saying that what you see on television isn't real." Zelda smirked, and Ganondorf suppressed a scowl. He knew that she was making fun of him, but he didn't understand the joke and didn't particularly care.

"Yes, I'm saying that magical wish fulfilment is a fiction. But you're different," he told her. "If other people twinkle like stars, you are the sun. The probability that your power hasn't manifested is close to zero. Whatever happened to me might be a result of something you've done without knowing. This means you may be on the verge of another manifestation. When that occurs, as I'm sure it will, whatever happened to the other people in Hyrule who have demonstrated magical ability will happen to you. This may have already happened to you in the past, though you might not remember it."

Zelda didn't respond. She looked out into the garden with a thoughtful expression on her face, and Ganondorf knew that his suspicions were correct.

"Tell me, Zelda, does this truly sound 'crazy' to you?"

"I always thought I was making things up," she said softly, still not meeting his eyes.

"I can assure you that you're not."

"So what do you get out of this?"

"Aside from regaining my memory?"

"Aside from that. No offense, but someone who's willing to pay someone else's rent must have other means of solving problems."

"I will protect you in order to protect myself. Our interests are aligned. I suggest you take advantage of what I'm offering. Accept the transfer."

"I intend to."

Ganondorf watched as she drank the rest of her tea before responding. "You said you wanted me to teach you how to use your abilities. That benefits me as well, but I need to be able to reach you. I'll call before I come, but only if you haven't turned off your phone."

"Fine," she said. An expression that Ganondorf couldn't read briefly surfaced on her face before disappearing. "Let's start now. What happens next?"

"A child would be given simple exercises and taught to discover their magic gradually, but our time is limited. We have no room for mistakes. Before anything, you need to understand how to access your power. I tapped into the flow of your magic in order to take control of it earlier. I will do the same thing again, but this time I'd like you to control it."

"How exactly do you intend to 'tap into' me?" Zelda's smirk returned, but Ganondorf no longer cared. It was of no consequence to him if she amused herself with private jokes at his expense.

"I'm sure you will grasp the principle of how this works in time, but for now it's easier to show you. Are you ready?"

"Yes." Zelda offered her hand to him with no hesitation. As he took it, Ganondorf remembered the delicate touch of her fingers on his face. He quickly banished the thought. She would have as much access to his mind as he would have into her. Even if she didn't yet understand how to read him, he would prefer for her not to know how she had affected him.

He opened a channel between them, and he could sense her attuning herself to him. He allowed her to grow comfortable with her awareness of the energy passing through her, which ebbed and flowed with her breath.

"How does it feel?" he asked.

"I don't know how to put it…" She sighed. "It's like I can do anything."

"That might be somewhat ambitious. You can start by summoning light, just as you did earlier."

"You did that."

_That was entirely you_, he thought, and she smiled in response.

Zelda extended her free hand and uncurled her fingers. Ganondorf could feel the warmth gathering on her palm, and he sent out a spark that she could use to light a flame. She caught it with ease and kindled it into a globe of light, which floated a few inches above her hand. It was small at first, but it grew stronger as he fueled it with his own magic. When he was confident that Zelda would be able to maintain it by herself, he withdrew his hand. The light remained, gentle but brilliant.

"It's beautiful," she said, and indeed it was. Ganondorf felt Zelda's wonder through their bond. In a dark corner of his mind, he realized that it would bring him no small amount of pleasure to kill whoever had forced her to remain ignorant of her own talent. Although she didn't yet know it, her power was incredible. Such power should not be wasted.


	16. Chapter 16

**In which Zelda receives a not entirely unexpected visit.**

* * *

Zelda sat alone in her apartment, surrounded by small globes of light. The ward covering the walls around her shimmered like the inside of a pearl.

One of the first things Ganondorf taught her was to cast a ward that would render her magic unobservable and undetectable. He'd prefaced his demonstration by informing her that the spell was fairly advanced and might take time to perform on her own, but he seemed pleased when she mastered it quickly and without any complications. He was insufferable, but she had to give him credit – he was never bitter or envious when she was able to do something that was supposed to be difficult.

Aside from Riju, who was blessed with such a wealth of confidence that she'd probably never been jealous of anyone in her life, people tended to resent Zelda's intelligence. She'd learned to keep her talents to herself, and she'd mastered the art of being quiet even when she could easily solve a problem or point out something that had been overlooked. Ganondorf saw through this pretense immediately and had no patience for it. He called her out on her behavior whenever she pretended to have trouble with something, so she dropped the act and began to speak to him as an equal. She was still convinced that he was using her for his own nefarious purposes, whatever they might be, but she appreciated that he enabled her to learn at her own pace and never forced her to hold herself back.

The way Ganondorf opened her awareness of magic when he started teaching her was one of the most exhilarating things she'd ever experienced. He never offered to do it again, however, and he never brought it up. She suspected that the connection he'd opened between them was extravagantly intimate. How could it not be, to be so closely linked to someone that you shared their breath and mind? She remembered the uncanny sensation of touching her own hand with his fingers and feeling the tension in his muscles as he perched on the table in front of her couch, where she sat facing him and looking at herself at the same time.

Zelda couldn't forget the incredible sense of potential that had flooded into her while she was connected to him. To have access to that amount of power… There were many things she found strange about Ganondorf, but that was among the most troubling. Who could he have been before he appeared at the door of her apartment? She still doubted whether he was human, but what were the implications if someone like him _was_ human? It seemed impossible, but the boundaries of what she considered within the realm of possibility were expanding with each passing day.

Ganondorf was true to his word and contacted her before he visited her apartment. It took him no time at all to appear after he called. Zelda worried that he was still stalking her until she realized that he couldn't possibly be, not unless he was somehow able to alter the location of his GPS when he called. She wouldn't put it past him, but it seemed far more likely that he traveled using a method he hadn't chosen to reveal to her yet, and she was guessing that it had nothing to do with public transportation.

He came every two or three days, but he rarely stayed for more than an hour. He told her only what he wanted her to know and showed her only what he seemed to feel confident that she could practice on her own. He never talked about himself.

Zelda sometimes found herself wondering what he did during the day. Judging by his wardrobe, he had a job with a substantially higher salary than her own. She deleted the message he sent her with information about his client without giving the matter too much thought, but she'd noticed that his email address belonged to one of the large investment firms in the downtown financial district. She tried searching for him on Navi, but the only traces of him she could find were on Link's feed on Skyloft. She remembered him saying something about his work not being entirely legal, so it was probably best not to know too much about him.

Like Riju, Ganondorf insisted on beginning any conversation with tea. It was a quaint ritual, and she'd come to look forward to it. She'd started to order tea from Beedlenet. Link would deliver it to her at work while remarking on how healthy she looked. She considered asking him about Ganondorf, thinking that perhaps they were dating. By the time she finally worked up the courage to say something, Link announced that he had a new boyfriend, a Zora with the old-fashioned name of Sidon. Link wouldn't shut up about him but hadn't yet suggested that she meet him. They must still be at an awkward stage of their relationship, so Zelda decided to put off asking about Ganondorf until he was more comfortable with the person he was currently dating.

Riju was back home in Lanayru and still texting her multiple times a day, but she'd stopped bothering her about coming for a visit. Zelda knew she was planning something, but there was nothing she could do to stop her. The matter was out of her hands, and she figured she might as well enjoy the calm before the storm.

Zelda had to admit to herself that she was happy for the first time in a long time. She still hated her job and felt embarrassed by her apartment, but her days had fallen into a comfortable routine. Now that she knew she wasn't crazy, she was more comfortable trusting her intuition. The diary she'd started keeping after she stopped taking her medication had transformed into a set of research notes on magic.

She was making steady progress with spellcasting as she gradually learned to account for a range of variables. At the moment she was challenging herself to see how many spheres of light she could keep afloat. As far as she could tell, there didn't seem to be any upper limit. Ganondorf said that most people didn't have the patience for magic. Was this supposed to be difficult?

Zelda's concentration was interrupted by a knock at the door. Her first thought was that it couldn't possibly be Ganondorf. He never visited without contacting her, and he never came twice in one evening. He was meticulous to a fault, and it would be unlike him to leave something behind in her apartment. He hadn't given her any indication that he enjoyed her company, and he wasn't the type to stop by for a chat. Still, who else could it be? Just to be safe, she dispersed her magic and dispelled the ward before answering the door.

The person on the other side of the threshold wasn't Ganondorf.

It was Impa.

Zelda's heart stopped, but she still stepped aside for her father's aide out of habit.

Impa gestured for Zelda to move away and then closed the door after herself, pausing to make sure it was locked. She met Zelda's eyes and clicked her tongue before gesturing toward a ball of light that lingered in a corner of the room.

Zelda struggled to breathe, but Impa smiled and patted her arm. "Leave it there," she said. "I'd like to take a closer look." She walked across the room with long strides, her footsteps ringing out against the floor like drumbeats.

"You did a good job with this. It's perfectly round, and it doesn't flicker or give off heat," she observed. "How long have you been practicing?"

"You know magic too?" Zelda blurted.

"Magic? What an uncouth expression. The Sheikah perform thaumaturgy."

Thaumaturgy? Zelda didn't know how to respond. Impa poked at the ball of light, and Zelda felt a shiver race down her spine as it vanished.

Impa turned to face her. "I imagine you must have questions. Do you have any coffee?"

"What? No, I… Can I offer you tea?"

Impa gave her a strange look. "Since when did you start drinking tea? But I'll take some, if you're offering."

Zelda walked to the kitchen in a trance, and Impa joined her.

"This place isn't much to look at," Impa remarked. "I thought that roommate of yours would set you up better than this."

"My roommate?" Zelda stammered, afraid that Impa had somehow learned about Ganondorf.

"That Gerudo you're so friendly with."

Zelda's breath caught in her throat before she realized that Impa must mean Riju.

"She's not responsible for me" was all she could think to say.

"Don't be absurd. She most certainly _is_ responsible for you, and she knows it."

"Then why are you here?"

"Our boy stopped giving us reports."

"Your boy?" Zelda felt her stomach sink.

"That lovely young man, you know, your father's intern."

"You mean – " she hoped Impa didn't mean – "Link?"

"That's his name, yes. It was obvious he had something he didn't want to tell us, so I thought I'd check up on you myself. Did Riju teach you how to cast a light spell, or was it your mother?"

"Excuse me?"

Impa must not know about Ganondorf, then. But did Ganondorf know about Link? As much as Zelda distrusted Ganondorf, she trusted Impa less. If she escaped from this conversation without being taken into custody, she'd have to find a way to communicate with him without being monitored. For the time being, she resolved not to mention him.

Impa shook her head. "And to think, after all the trouble we went through to seal your magic. I told your father it was a bad idea to allow you to live on your own, but he wouldn't listen to me."

Impa was trying to bait her into getting upset, but she kept her face neutral. "What type of tea would you like?" she asked.

"Green, if you have it."

She had plenty, in fact. She was partial to it herself, but she rarely made it. Ganondorf didn't like it. He never said as much, but by now she knew him well enough to have a decent sense of his moods.

_This isn't the time to be thinking of him_. Zelda silently cursed herself in frustration.

Or no, perhaps this was exactly the right time to think about him. If he were in this situation, he would get straight to the point and say what needed to be said without prevarication. Zelda resented having to use Ganondorf as a model for acceptable adult behavior – Hylia knows he wasn't the most pleasant person to be around – but she decided to speak as she thought he would.

"Impa, why are you here? I'm not in contact with my father, and I have no desire to speak with him. If you've come as an intermediary, I'm afraid the trip is wasted."

Impa didn't look the slightest bit bothered by Zelda's curt tone. "This isn't about your father," she replied. She stood in the doorway of the kitchen, blocking it with her body, and Zelda suddenly felt cornered and claustrophobic. Had she really thought she would be able to escape from her family? Had she truly believed that she would simply be allowed to leave?

Impa's smile vanished from her face. "You're Sheikah business now."


	17. Chapter 17

**In which Ganondorf meets Zelda's father.**

* * *

The central district commissioner's campaign party was hosted on the top floor of a midtown skyscraper. The floor-to-ceiling windows that bordered the suite rendered the space corporate and charmless. The city lights stained the night sky purple and orange, like a bruise that refused to heal.

Ganondorf had studied the commissioner's page on Kaeporapedia until he could recite most of it, but he had no real desire to meet him. The man was a minor player at best, barely important enough to be used as a puppet by someone with real power. Ganondorf hadn't asked to be invited to the event but merely informed one of the senior partners at the firm that he would be attending. The colleague he had designated as his escort was from old money, and he probably thought he was doing a Ganondorf a favor. He was, but not in the way he intended. Ganondorf's goal for the evening was to introduce himself to one of the partners of a rival firm. There was no pressing need for him to leave his current job, but it wouldn't be wise to remain with one employer for too long. He didn't want anyone to start asking questions.

He kept a glass of whiskey in his hand but drank sparingly. The acoustics of the room were awful, but he tolerated the raucous atmosphere of the evening with as much grace as he could muster. It took the better part of three hours before he was able to catch his quarry; but, once he did, the job he wanted was as good as his. Hard work and talent were important, but not nearly as much as being in the right place at the right time. And knowing the right people, of course.

Ganondorf stood in front of the wall of windows and looked out over the city as he allowed himself to take his first real drink of the evening. Hylian alcohol barely affected him, but he enjoyed the taste. As he drank, he fantasized about the lights on the horizon going dark. The land must have been beautiful once, but this city was a blight on the earth. He wondered what it would look like in ruins, its towers crumbling as vegetation reclaimed the asphalt and concrete. All it would take would be two days without maintenance for the pumps supporting the sewer system to be overwhelmed and shut down. The sea would rise to its proper place, and the roads would become rivers. In time, trees would overtake the sidewalks, and the animals that crept in the shadows of the streetlights would be able to walk in the sun. People could live freely in such a place, and they might even be happy.

"It's a beautiful city, isn't it?"

Ganondorf saw the reflection of the man standing next to him in the window and knew him immediately. The resemblance to Zelda was unmistakable.

"President Bosphoramus," he said, summoning a smile to his face. "I don't believe we've met."

"Call me Rhoam, please."

"Rhoam, then. Allow me to raise a toast to this city."

"With pleasure."

They clinked the rims of their glasses together and drank. Ganondorf allowed the ensuing silence to spool out, knowing that Rhoam would speak first. His patience was rewarded.

"This is the first time I've seen you at one of these gatherings."

"I moved here only recently."

"Your boss has been keen to introduce you to everyone."

"With respect, he's not my boss."

"Not for much longer, I suspect." Rhoam took another sip of his drink.

It occurred to Ganondorf that Rhoam's resemblance to Zelda wasn't just in his face. This man likely knew more than he let on, and he was dangerous. He was either fishing for information or attempting to confirm information already in his possession. Ganondorf could handle another minute or two of polite conversation, but it was time for him to leave. Zelda had never laid a trap for him because she believed she had no reason to, but Zelda was not the president of Hyrule.

_But she so easily could be_, he thought.

"A rolling stone gathers no moss," Ganondorf said. It was as noncommittal of a reply as he could manage.

"'Grow where you're planted' is what I was always told," Rhoam responded. "But we're not plants, are we, Ganondorf?"

Ganondorf wasn't the least bit surprised that Rhoam already knew his name. He nodded and took a drink to conceal his irritation. Aside from his treatment of his daughter, he had no particular reason to feel antipathy for the man, but he found that he hated him. He hated the easy way he carried himself, and he hated that he was so willing to address a stranger as an equal despite the clear difference in their status. It was a type of condescension all the more insulting for its subtlety; it was as if Rhoam were saying, 'We're the same, you and I, except you are no one and I have everything, but it amuses me to pretend for a moment.' Rhoam was a born politician, and there was no way this conversation would end without him getting the upper hand.

Ganondorf knew better than to prolong the engagement, but he couldn't help himself. "It's a lovely little garden you've got here," he said, indicating the city beyond the window with a twist of his wrist. "Cozy."

"I like to think so." Ganondorf could see the reflection of Rhoam's smile in the window. It seemed genuine, and it probably was.

That was the difference between people who merely craved positions of power and people who actually attained them. Ganondorf had met any number of people who believed that they were destined for greatness, but the majority of them were completely lacking in charisma. Ambition mattered, but so did convincing people to like you. Sharpness and bitterness stank of insecurity and a weakness of character. Meanwhile, the Rhoams of the world could afford to be kind. People who thought that hard work was the key to success would work themselves to the bone and achieve nothing; they would become petty tyrants who abused whatever small measure of authority they came to wield. Someone like Rhoam, who could approach a stranger and smile with easy sincerity, would climb far above them, and it would seem effortless.

Every stitch on the immaculate cuffs of Rhoam's shirt betrayed his wealth and good breeding. His worth did not need to be proven to anyone. He wore his collar open, and his blazer was unbuttoned. There was no watch on his wrist, and no rectangle of a wallet or phone in the pockets of his slacks. He was above such common things.

Ganondorf hated him, and he hated the way he looked at the city with a patronizing smile.

Rhoam wasn't a bad person, probably. He more than likely had the best of intentions. He could no doubt provide an intelligent and logical justification for why the state he administered functioned in the way that it did. He would most certainly be happy to explain his rationale if someone were to ask.

Ganondorf cared nothing for politics or policy. Rhoam could have his authoritarian police state. He could have his Sheikah wolves prowling the streets, and he could have as many children stripped of their magic as he liked. It was none of Ganondorf's concern. The world was larger than Hyrule, after all. The only thing keeping him here was Zelda and whatever secret she was hiding. Until he could extract the key to her magical ability, he would need to remain as inconspicuous as possible. He would bow to the king, and he would even kiss his ring if need be.

"I sometimes find myself wondering how large this city could grow," Ganondorf remarked.

"I don't see any need for it to be any bigger," Rhoam replied amiably. "According to an old legend, it's said that Hyrule was created by three goddesses who blessed its royal family with a sacred artifact. The kings and queens were bound to this land by their duty to protect it, and there was never any reason for them to leave. These days we're bound more by zoning laws, of course."

Rhoam laughed, and Ganondorf chuckled appreciatively while his mind raced. A sacred artifact that granted power to the ruling family? What an intriguing notion.

"Surely there are such legends where you're from," Rhoam invited, and Ganondorf smiled in feigned camaraderie.

"That's a tale for another time. It was a pleasure to meet you, Rhoam, but you'll have to excuse me. It appears that someone I've been wanting to speak with is on his way out. I'd like to catch him before he leaves, if you don't mind."

"Not at all. The pleasure is mine," Rhoam said, clapping him on the arm. Ganondorf had to exert every ounce of his willpower not to flinch. After she'd offered her hand to him during what had become their first magic lesson, Zelda had not once attempted to touch him. She was so fastidiously self-contained that it was difficult for him to imagine her touching anyone. He thought of her sad apartment and the cheap clothing she wore, and he considered grabbing Rhoam's arm and twisting it behind his back until he screamed.

Instead he simply smiled and nodded and set off in the direction of the foyer, setting his drink down on an empty table along the way. He no longer had any taste for alcohol. He paused to chat with a few people in case anyone was watching, but he couldn't leave the building quickly enough. He hailed a cab as soon as he was outside. He rode for several blocks but cut the trip short. He was too restless to sit still. The fresh night air would help him clear his mind.

He felt as if he'd narrowly escaped a trap. Hyrule was too small, too small by far. He would have to be more careful if he wanted to evade scrutiny. He was already standing on thin ice with Link, whom he'd ascertained was a Sheikah informant only a few weeks after he'd met him.

He left the cab in a conspicuously high-rent neighborhood. It was bustling during the day but almost deserted at this hour of the night. Trees emerged from gaps in the sidewalk, their broad leaves and branches healthy despite being severely pruned. Potted plants lined the steps leading to doors that had no bars or padlocks. A few of the townhouses had left their front windows open to let in the breeze. At the corner of the block was a postbox so clean it looked freshly polished. It stood as straight and immaculate as a soldier in front of a storefront whose picture windows were unobstructed by shutters. There were no cars parked against the curb and no trash clogging the storm drains. Sanidin _Park _wasn't far away, and Ganondorf could hear the faint calls of the ducks on the water of its artificial lake. At times like this, deep in the quiet of night, Hyrule was almost pleasant.

His thoughts turned to Zelda. It was high time for him to have a serious conversation with her. If nothing else, he needed to inform her that he'd met her father. It would be uncomfortable, but he had to ask her why she left home. Something had happened to her, he was sure of it. If she couldn't remember, there were ways to help her. Opening another connection between them would put him in an extremely vulnerable position, especially now that she had become more confident and assured, but she had already seen him at his worst. He had nothing to hide from her, and there was no need to go through the tedious rituals of establishing a friendship. The hour or so he spent at her apartment every two or three days had gradually become one of the only times he could allow himself to relax. If he didn't want to lose that sense of security, he would have to talk with her, the sooner the better.

Ganondorf took out his phone, which was currently on its third SIM card. The device was completely generic, with no stored data or personal customization at all. He had no trouble remembering phone numbers, however, and it took him barely a second to call Zelda.

She didn't pick up.

She'd stopped screening his calls, and it was improbable she would be out this late, especially not in the block of tenement housing where she lived. An uncomfortable weight settled into the pit of his stomach.

He stepped into the shadows of an alleyway between storefronts and stepped out in the unlit blackness of the stairwell of Zelda's apartment building.

No one answered when he knocked on her door.

He banged his fist on the half-rotten wood in frustration. He'd spent so much time convincing her to trust him that he'd stopped paying attention to whether he trusted her. Hylia help him, he'd actually begun to look forward to seeing her. What if this had all been an elaborate trap? He'd assumed she had no motive to hurt him, but it had been foolish to lower his guard. What if she had been a Sheikah agent all along?

There was no light emerging from the crack at the bottom of the door, but the shadows cast by the ghostly fluorescent lights of the hallway were too shallow for him to use magic to cross over. He considered using less elegant means to force his way into Zelda's apartment, but it would serve no purpose for him to sit waiting in the darkness for her to return. If he could trust her, it would be counterproductive to upend their relationship by invading her space without her permission.

If he couldn't trust her, another day would hardly make a difference.

If she had betrayed him, then he would kill her, and nothing would stand in his way.


	18. Chapter 18

**In which Zelda learns of a terrible prophecy.**

* * *

"Darling! I can't remember the last time I saw you. You look marvelous!"

Zelda couldn't help but smile. "It's good to see you too, Purah."

Despite the odd circumstances, Zelda was genuinely pleased to see Purah. Impa was intense and inscrutable at the best of times, but her older sister Purah had always treated Zelda like a friend. As one of Hyrule's foremost experts in Sheikah technology, Purah had been a member of Zelda's father's cabinet for more than a decade, but to Zelda's eyes she never seemed to age at all.

"Have you met my assistant, Symin?"

Purah stepped away from Zelda and waved over a young man in Sheikah lab whites with broad shoulders and a trim beard lining his square jaw. He greeted her in a smooth and cultured voice, and Zelda shook his hand. His smile was sweet, but his grip was strong. It occurred to Zelda that she wouldn't mind having an assistant like this of her own someday.

"Impa just sent me a message to let me know that you've been able to unseal your magic," Purah said. Her grin was bright enough to illuminate a stadium, but her words put Zelda on edge. She'd come to the Sheikah lab with Impa directly from her apartment, and Impa hadn't let her out of her sight for a second. When did she have time to send a message? There must have been other Sheikah outside the building, but why? Had Impa expected her to try to escape?

Zelda kept a polite smile on her face but didn't respond to Purah's comment.

"I knew this would happen sooner or later," Purah continued. "I'm surprised it look as long as it did, if you don't mind me being honest. Technically you were supposed to be seventeen when you began to practice thaumaturgy again. That's what the stars said, anyway."

Zelda didn't know what to make of this statement. It was the sort of thing she expected to hear from her father, not from a respected scientist in a lab coat.

"Are you saying that there was sort of prophecy? In the stars? About me specifically?"

Purah's grin widened. "But of course."

"Just to be clear, are you talking about astrology?" Zelda asked. "Surely you don't believe in that."

Purah looked surprised. "You don't?"

"Purah," Impa interrupted them in a beleaguered tone.

"Now just a minute, don't you 'Purah' me. Didn't you tell her anything?"

"There will be time enough for that later. I brought her to you immediately so that you can confirm her thaumaturgical ability."

"Couldn't that wait until morning?"

"We can't launch a formal investigation into the evidence that the cycle has started again unless we have proof."

"What cycle?" Zelda asked. Purah and Impa glared at each other. Symin seemed as if he wanted to say something, but Purah gestured for him to be silent.

"Fine," Purah said, shaking her head. "Zelda, can I ask you to perform a bit of thaumaturgy for me?"

Purah presented Zelda with an encouraging smile. After a moment, Impa's face relaxed into a similar expression. The sisters were like night and day, but there was something almost comical in the close resemblance of their smiles. Zelda had always been a little afraid of Impa, but seeing her together with Purah set her at ease.

"I'd like to watch too, if you don't mind." Symin wedged himself between Impa and Purah and presented her with yet another gentle grin as he adjusted a pair of square-rimmed glasses several years out of style. Sweet Nayru, he was adorable.

_Well, here goes_, Zelda thought. She took a breath and summoned a small ball of light that she allowed to dissipate after a few seconds.

"That's wonderful!" Purah cooed. "Could you do it again?" She tapped the outer rim of her canary red spectacles, prompting a glowing chain of neon blue characters to flash across the lenses.

"What are you wearing?" Zelda asked, unable to help herself. Whatever they were, she wanted a pair.

"It's Sheikah tech, darling. Snap!" Purah beamed at her, laughed, and said, "You're going to love it here!"

Purah's words struck Zelda as ominous. Surely they didn't mean to keep her here against her will. If Purah insisted that she stay, she wasn't in a position to refuse. Impa had already made it sufficiently clear that there was no escaping Sheikah surveillance.

Zelda found herself wondering how Ganondorf would respond to Purah's assumption that she'd consent to remain in the lab. He never asked questions but demanded answers as if he were entitled to them. Zelda sometimes found this tendency of his frustrating, but it seemed to be exactly what the situation at hand called for.

"No one has told me where 'here' is," she said, doing her best to mimic Ganondorf's dry tone.

Purah made a sour face at Impa. "She's right, little sister. Do I have the appropriate 'security clearance' to tell her?" she asked, making air quotes with her fingers.

Impa didn't acknowledge her sarcasm. "We're in the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab. Dr. Purah is the Director."

_I've already gathered that much_, Zelda wanted to respond. _You're not telling me anything._

"I'd like to know why I'm here," she said instead.

"If you can perform thaumaturgy, then you're one of us," Purah explained. "And to think, you have a solid background in science too. I was afraid you'd major in law or some other useless nonsense, but you're a fully trained researcher."

"And?"

"And we'd like you to work with us, of course! We recently unearthed a cache of the most amazing artifacts under the site of the old castle, but barely anyone can make heads or tails of them. Not that we haven't tried, of course, but there just aren't enough of us left with any thaumaturgical ability."

"Can't everyone do magic? I mean, thaumaturgy?"

Purah raised her eyebrows. "Why would you think that?"

"I thought it was something that had to be sealed, like with the pills you gave me…?"

Purah's grin returned to her face, and her eyes sparkled behind her glasses. "Now that's an interesting history lesson. Just the other day I was reading – "

"Purah."

Purah waved her hand at Impa. "Okay, whatever. You can explain everything during the debriefing."

Impa nodded. "Zelda, we need you to repeat your display of thaumaturgy for confirmation."

It hadn't gotten past Zelda that Impa hadn't allowed Purah to address the matter of the medication she had been forced to take, and she didn't appreciate being given orders by someone who was technically her father's subordinate.

"Is that a request? Or a threat?"

Impa's eyes narrowed.

Purah glanced between them. "Yikes, wow, okay," she interceded. "Zelda, we're on your side here." She glanced at Impa, as if for confirmation. "Right?"

Zelda refused to let the matter rest. She was no longer the same child who did everything her father asked without question. She needed Impa to make her intentions clear, and she refused to cooperate until she knew whether she was being detained as a hostage.

"Is it my side you're on, or my father's?"

"It is my wish to see you both on the same side."

"How altruistic of you."

"I don't have the slightest interest in intervening into your family drama. The stakes are much larger than what your father may or may not think is best for you."

"What stakes?"

"She really didn't tell you, did she," Purah broke in. "Impa, why are you always like this? Stop being so mysterious. None of this should be a secret to her."

Zelda's frustration was getting the better of her. "If no one tells me what's going on, I'm going to call my father myself. What exactly is so urgent that you felt justified in suddenly showing up at my apartment and forcing me to come here with you? What are you afraid is going to happen?"

"The War of Burning Fields," Impa said.

Zelda wasn't sure what she expected to hear, but it wasn't that. "Excuse me?"

"It's not what everyone was led to believe it was. The Calamity was much worse than anything you can imagine. It was only barely contained, and we're in danger of it happening again."

"That's impossible," Zelda objected. "All of that happened more than two hundred years ago. The War of Burning Fields was a civil disturbance caused by a rogue group of Sheikah. They can't possibly still be active. And besides, all of the weapons were decommissioned. I mean, you can go to a museum and see the Divine Beasts for yourself. They're practically art installations. What exactly is in danger of happening again?"

Purah answered her this time. "The ancient Sheikah knew that they would have to communicate with future generations without the aid of a shared language, so they created star maps. They take some measure of skill to decipher – and we're quite good at it, if I do say so myself – but the general idea is that the positions of the constellations on the map indicate the general timeframe for the recurrence of the next cycle of the Calamity. It's an early warning system, basically."

Zelda frowned. "I still don't follow. The Calamity was caused by the use of weapons of mass destruction that found their way into the hands of a terrorist organization. I can understand if there's some sort of deranged group of people running around and calling themselves the Yiga Clan, but how can the position of the stars possibly predict their behavior?"

Impa took a deep breath. "The Yiga were never anything more than a small cult. They were dangerous enough, but they weren't a threat to Hyrule. They could never have taken control of the Guardians, much less the Divine Beasts. Even if they managed to acquire one of the machines, there were enough thaumaturgical locks in place to ensure that they couldn't be operated by any unauthorized parties. The Yiga were allowed to exist solely for the purpose of becoming scapegoats. The true source of the Calamity was something far more powerful than even the most sophisticated Sheikah technology could account for."

This was an incredible revelation, but it still didn't answer her question. "So what are you saying?" Zelda demanded.

"The seal on the Calamity put in place by the last princess cannot last forever," Impa answered. "The time has come for that seal to be broken. When it does break, as it surely will, Hyrule will be in grave danger."

Zelda had a bad feeling about where this was going. "What do you mean? What danger?"

Impa met her eyes. "Ganon will return."


	19. Chapter 19

**In which Zelda makes a confession to Ganondorf and receives one in return.**

* * *

"So I've been thinking," Zelda began, setting a cup of tea on the table in front of Ganondorf. "I've never seen you drive, and I can't imagine you taking the train. How do you get here? You must use magic."

Ganondorf didn't answer. He'd been staring out into the yard since he arrived, and he'd barely spoken to her at all. The windows were pulled open to let in a breeze, but the outside air was still and heavy. The sky was overcast. The days were as long as they would ever be, and the sun was taking its sweet time setting. The hydrangea bush sprawling across the patchy grass extended its broad leaves upward in anticipation of the coming rain.

Ganondorf seemed distracted. It wasn't like him to ignore her. Zelda put her tea down on the table and sat beside it. She wanted to let it cool before she drank it. The humidity was oppressive. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She'd washed her face as soon as she got home from work, but her skin already felt sticky. Ganondorf had removed his tie along with his suit jacket and rolled his shirtsleeves to his elbows, but he didn't look as though the heat bothered him. No matter how hot it got in the evening, he never seemed to sweat. Zelda wondered how he could tolerate this sort of weather. She had always hated summer.

She allowed the silence to settle into the space between them, but he didn't acknowledge her or the tea she'd made for him. She attempted to pick the conversation up again.

"Don't tell me you have a driver."

"I travel through the Twilight," he said, still looking outside.

"Am I supposed to know what that means?"

"It's a world parallel to our own."

Zelda realized that he meant "the Twilight" as an actual place, but that was ridiculous. She was familiar with the story of the Twilight Princess – everyone was – but it was just an old romance. Or was it? At this point she didn't know what to believe.

"I can't tell if you're joking," she admitted.

Ganondorf finally picked up his tea and tasted it, but his expression didn't change. "I don't know how much you already know."

Zelda frowned. What a bizarre thing to say. It was never easy to tell what Ganondorf was thinking, but he was being especially difficult today. She hadn't expected him to drop by this afternoon, and she'd had a long night. After failing to get any real answers from Impa, she didn't have patience for this sort of prevarication from Ganondorf.

"You're in a foul mood. Tell me what's going on," she said.

"I met your father yesterday."

If Zelda had been holding her tea, she would have dropped it. She hadn't told Ganondorf who she was, but there was no way he wouldn't have found out. Still, it was unnerving to hear him acknowledge that he knew.

"And?"

"He's charming."

Zelda winced. "You could say that."

"You're using a different surname."

"How astute of you to notice. Any reason you're bringing this up now?"

"There's no reason for you work a miserable job as a lab assistant at a second-rate company."

"I never said it was miserable."

"I've seen your bank account."

Zelda felt her temper rising. "I thought we agreed you would stop stalking me. What were you doing palling around with my father?"

"He approached me."

"He's a politician, he does that. It's the start of the campaign season. Is that where you met him, at a fundraiser? I thought you worked in finance, not politics."

"I'd like to know where you met Link."

"So you figured out that Link was working for my father."

"I did." Ganondorf turned to look at her. "Perhaps you have other friends you'd like to tell me about."

A chill passed over Zelda's skin. What was he getting at? "I'm allowed to have friends."

"Do you have any friends who aren't spies?"

This was getting ridiculous. Zelda crossed her arms over her chest. "Are you a spy too, then?"

Ganondorf's body tensed, and a dark shadow passed over his face. Zelda wasn't sure whether to hold her ground or move as far away from him as possible, but in the end her irritation with his pettiness won out over her sense of self-preservation.

"You're being unreasonable, and this isn't getting us anywhere. Why don't you tell me what you're so upset about?" she offered. "Did my father say something to you?"

His response took her by surprise.

"Where were you last night?"

"Last night?"

"I called you, but you didn't pick up."

"Is that it?" Despite herself, Zelda laughed. It was a relief to know that even Ganondorf could get upset over a missed call. A second later, Zelda's smile vanished as she realized the implications of his question.

Ganondorf stood so suddenly that he knocked his mug of tea from the table onto the floor. Zelda got to her feet and felt the blood drain from her face as she watched him walk to the bookcase. The Sheikah slate that Purah had given her had been sitting on a shelf this entire time.

"This isn't what you think," she said.

Ganondorf grabbed the Sheikah Slate and marched back to her before slamming the device down onto the table with enough force to crack the cheap veneer of its polish. Her teacup flew into the air from the force of the blow and shattered on the floor.

"Then tell me what this is," Ganondorf demanded. "If my safety is compromised, Din help me, I'll wipe your memory so clean that you won't remember your own name."

His voice was as smooth as silk. This alarmed her more than his earlier act of violence. She knew him well enough to understand that he would never lay a hand on her, but the extent of his magic was beyond her ability to comprehend. If he said he could and would do something, he meant it.

But she had faced the same implicit threat from Impa just last night, and she was tired.

"Do whatever you like," she said. "It's not as if anyone is concerned with _my_ safety. When you started teaching me magic, you must have been aware that it would make me a target of the Sheikah. My father's aide came by the apartment last night, if you must know. She offered me a job in her sister's laboratory. I said I'd think about it. I was practically abducted, and that's all I _could_ say. It was a shock to learn that Link was working for my father, but I don't think he is anymore. I haven't talked with him yet. The Sheikah don't seem to know about you, if that's all you care about. But who knows? Maybe _you've_ been working for _them_. I wouldn't put it past my father to use you as a pawn in some esoteric game he's playing. How much are they paying you?"

Ganondorf scowled in distaste, which made her even angrier.

"Don't think I haven't considered it," she shot at him. "Why else would you want to teach me magic? Because you have amnesia? That's not a real thing. Who has amnesia? I mean, there's obviously something wrong with you if you showed up at my apartment naked and speaking in tongues, but your damage isn't my responsibility. How am I supposed to know you're who you say you are?"

"I don't see any reason to trust you with information about myself."

"For Nayru's sake, Ganondorf, the head of my father's secret service barged into my apartment an hour before midnight and spirited me away to some secret facility in the Hateno suburbs to put the fear of Hylia into me. She didn't induct me into the deep mysteries of whatever they're doing out there. There wouldn't have been time even if she wanted to." Zelda knew she was rambling, but she couldn't seem to stop herself. "The drive alone took more than an hour, so you can imagine how much sleep I got. There are a lot of things on my mind right now, and I'm not interested in you throwing a tantrum because I didn't pick up the phone, especially not after you ruined my table and spilled tea on my floor."

Ganondorf's scowl deepened. "Your table is a piece of garbage," he said. He snapped his fingers, and the crack in its surface disappeared. "Your floor isn't much better," he added. He snapped his fingers again, and the pieces of the broken glass vanished. Her cup reappeared on the table, whole and uncracked, alongside the mug he had knocked over earlier.

"When were you going to get around to teaching me how to do that?" Zelda asked, still irritated.

"After I teach you to make iced tea. It's too hot inside this apartment."

Zelda cleared her throat. "I think your theory about the Sheikah having done something to you has merit. I was going to tell you about what happened, but I haven't had time to process it. And they weren't exactly forthcoming with an explanation about what they wanted from me. They gave me some sort of artifact, or whatever that tablet is, but they didn't tell me why. The Sheikah are like that, and my father does nothing to curb them. This is one of the things I wanted to get away from when I left home."

Zelda made a frustrated gesture and sat down. To her immense surprise, Ganondorf sat beside her. He was very large, and the couch was uncomfortably small, but their proximity didn't seem to bother him.

It occurred to her that he had never used his size to intimidate her. Riju used her stature to her advantage all the time, sometimes without intending to. Zelda thought of the cup Ganondorf had shattered. It was sturdily made, and she probably wouldn't have been able to break it even if she tried. It must have taken a conscious effort on Ganondorf's part in order for her not to be aware of his size and strength. At the moment, however, he was deep in thought and not paying attention to her at all. He was so close to her that she could smell his aftershave. She considered standing up, but sitting next to him wasn't unpleasant.

"What does the tablet do?" he asked.

"I don't know," she answered honestly. "Purah – she's the head of the research lab – just gave it to me and told me to see what I could do with it."

"I assume you've already examined it."

"It doesn't do anything special, at least not as far as I can tell. The screen doesn't even turn on."

"Give it to me."

Zelda didn't feel like standing up to retrieve it from where it had fallen after he threw it. "What's the magic word?" she asked, annoyed. If Ganondorf wanted it, he could get it himself.

He opened his palm, and the tablet blinked from where it lay on the floor into his hand.

"What magic word?"

Zelda closed her eyes. "Never mind. You wouldn't know it."

"Did you honestly expect me to say 'please'?"

"I kind of did."

"Please, Your Highness," he said, already tapping the blank screen, "may I inspect the murder device your father's secret police entrusted to your care? It's impossibly ancient and powered by a magical battery that may well be unstable, but I'm sure there will be no consequences if I tamper with it."

Zelda didn't dignify his sarcasm with a response. There was no meanness in his voice, and he was already absorbed in whatever he was doing with the Sheikah Slate. She watched him examine the tablet. Despite having been thrown with enough force to break her table, it remained unharmed. Why had Ganondorf called it a murder device? Did he already know something about it? The Sheikah Slate looked small in his hands, and she was fascinated by the way he moved his fingers across its screen. It seemed as if he knew what he was doing.

Cyanic blue light flickered onto the screen, and a soft glow illuminated the hollows between the ridges of the tablet's casing.

"It's configured to respond to a specific magical signature," he said. "It will only activate for the person who has been set as its user, which isn't you, I'm afraid."

"How do you know that?"

"I'm not sure I can explain."

"Fair enough. Can you figure out how to make it work?"

"Give me a second."

Ganondorf held the Sheikah Slate in front of him. He released it, but it didn't fall. Instead, it floated serenely between his palms.

Zelda felt a charge in the air. It was like the need to sneeze, except it was inside her head and hands. Just when the sensation was starting to become unbearable, there was a quick burst of light like the flash of an old camera, which was followed by a phantom smell of burning paper that flared and disappeared within an instant.

As she watched, the glow of the screen and the lines of light on its casing shifted from cyan to magenta.

"There we go," Ganondorf said softly. "It's unlocked. Try it now."

He offered it to her, and her skin tingled when she took it. Five large icons dominated the screen, but none of them meant anything to her. She touched the tip of her finger to the one that resembled a snowflake. A hole in the casing clicked open with a neat and barely perceptible sound, and a hidden lens projected a geometric grid of ultraviolet lines onto the empty space in front of her. As she tried to make sense of what she was seeing, Zelda became aware of a vicious chill in the air.

"I'd cancel that if I were you," Ganondorf suggested.

"How do I…" she began to ask, but then she knew; it was as if she had always known. She focused her intention that the tablet's current function be canceled, and it was.

"Should I try the other icons?" She hovered her finger over an icon that looked like a square. What could possibly be the harm in that?

"It depends. Trial and error would be the only way to find out."

"What do you think this one does?"

"Nothing you want to happen in your apartment."

"Would you care to be more specific?"

"I suspect it triggers some sort of explosive mechanism."

Did he mean to say that it was a bomb? "Let me give this back to you," Zelda said, passing the tablet to Ganondorf. The Sheikah Slate was worth a thorough investigation, to be sure, but why would Purah send her back to her apartment with something like this?

Ganondorf took it from her without comment and shut it down. The bright pink light shifted back to a soothing blue before fading.

"Why did they give you something so hazardous?" he asked.

Zelda, who had been wondering the same thing, responded with the answer that was beginning to take shape in her thoughts: "Ganon."

"Yes?"

It took Zelda a moment to understand his response.

"No, I meant… Not you. Purah – that is to say, the Director of the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab – thinks Ganon is going to return. As in Ganon the monster, the demon that caused the Calamity."

"And they think Ganon is me."

"I've already said that I didn't tell them anything about you." Zelda paused. "But that's an interesting conclusion for you to jump to. Tell me, is it you?"

"You're implying that you think it's me."

Ganondorf's voice had grown quiet, but Zelda decided to give him an honest answer. "I don't know what to think."

Ganondorf exhaled slowly. He bent forward to place the Sheikah Slate on the table and then leaned back, looking out into the garden as he tapped his fingers against the arm of the couch. "Why don't you tell me again how you found me," he said.

"I didn't 'find' you. You came here on your own. We've been through this."

"Not recently, and not when you weren't accusing me of something. Tell me everything you remember." He frowned and added, "Please."

"I used to take this medication," Zelda said, unsure of where to begin. "I had a lot of nightmares when I was young. Just, really…" She wasn't sure how to describe what it had been like, but Ganondorf didn't rush her. She paused to gather her thoughts. After a moment, she was able to continue. "The nightmares were horrible. It was like something terrible was going to happen, except it had already happened, and the fact that I knew it had happened meant that now something was coming for me. There would be a fire, or a flood, or a tornado, or a volcanic eruption, always something awful, and there were people dying all around me. And someone – or some_thing_ – was hunting me, but I couldn't run away from it. I had to run from the disaster, but that I meant I was running toward whatever was waiting for me. It knew me, and it _hated_ me. No matter what I did, it would always be there, and sometimes I would even see it. I can't…"

Zelda had never told anyone about this; she would never have dared. She could feel her heart racing just on the edge of panic, but Ganondorf's solid presence beside her was calming. In the eerie quiet preceding the storm brewing outside, she could hear him breathing, and the steady rhythm of his breath comforted her.

"Anyway, whatever else it was supposed to do, the medication stopped the dreams. I was happy to take it. I would have done anything, really. The nightmares felt real, more like memories than dreams. I would wake up and scream and scream and scream. When my parents finally took me to the hospital… I'm not sure why I was there for so long, but I wonder if maybe… I don't know, I'm not sure what to say. Maybe it wasn't… I don't know."

"Something happened to you, clearly. You don't have to talk about it right now."

Zelda nodded. "I stopped taking the medication when I cut off contact with my family, and the nightmares came back. I thought they were just stress dreams at first, but they were so _real_. It was like I wasn't asleep at all, just somewhere else. I guess it was like watching a movie, except I was in the movie and watching myself at the same time. But these dreams were different than what I remember from when I was a child. I was still trying to escape, but I wasn't running from anything. I was trapped in a dark and enclosed space, and it was always unpleasant, like I was being swallowed by water, or running out of air in a sealed room, or having my limbs crushed from the pressure of the walls closing in on me. And the worst thing was that whatever used to hunt me through my nightmares was _in there with me_."

Zelda shook her head. "Whatever the thing was, I could never see it clearly, and it was always different. But that's what you looked like when you broke down the door to my apartment. Do you understand? You weren't even remotely human, and your shape kept changing. You had so many arms, and legs, and other appendages I can't name, and they were there or not there every time I blinked. You were covered in some sort of black slime that scorched whatever it touched, and your face was… You were wearing some sort of mask, but you didn't have a face, only holes and wires. And teeth."

"That's disturbing," Ganondorf remarked. There was no emotion in his voice, and Zelda felt ashamed.

"I thought I had finally gone crazy."

"People don't simply 'go crazy.'"

"You know what I mean. I thought I was having some sort of episode, or that I was still dreaming."

"Dreams don't end with an actual person standing in your shower."

"Like I said, I thought there was something seriously wrong with me. You know how this neighborhood is. Maybe you were a homeless person who found your way inside the building, and maybe I was so upset that I was hallucinating. It didn't feel like a dream, but my nightmares have never felt like dreams. I don't know… I guess I was just tired of feeling afraid."

"So you left a homeless person in your apartment."

"I keep telling you, I didn't know if you were real. If you could see what you looked like then, you wouldn't believe you were real either. I was already going to be late to work, and I didn't want to lose my job because I was spending all morning dealing with something that probably only existed in my own head. And if you were just a homeless person, what damage could you possibly do? I mean, even if you wanted to steal something, it's not like there's anything here. I was sure you'd be gone by the time I got back."

"I see."

"I did my best to convince myself that nothing had happened, and it worked, more or less. There was no sign that anyone had been here when I got back. The door was unlocked, but it was back on its hinges. There were no splinters of wood in the hallway, no black slime on the floor, no clumps of hair in the shower… Not even a wet towel on the back of a chair. Until you came back, I was sure I had just had a bad dream."

"And you didn't tell anyone."

"Who was I supposed to tell about something like that?"

"I find it difficult to believe you don't have friends."

"That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Don't change the subject."

"It's complicated."

"What about Link?"

"I can't be sure at this point. I just learned that he was working for my father last night, and I haven't seen him since then. Like I said, I don't think he's reporting to the Sheikah anymore, which might be why they came here themselves. Do you want to talk to him together?"

"I'll think about it."

Zelda knew that meant 'yes,' but she didn't see any point in pushing him to admit it. Ganondorf steepled his hands together and stared at a point beyond his fingertips. Zelda watched him but didn't pressure him to speak. She couldn't begin to imagine what he made of her story. A peal of thunder echoed outside. There was still light in the sky, but the rain couldn't be more than a few minutes away.

"Why don't you tell me what you remember?" she asked. His brusque manner had always discouraged her from asking him anything about himself, but now seemed as good a time as any.

It took him a few moments to answer. "I was asleep, I think," he finally said. "I don't remember anything before that. The first thing I can recall is hearing a voice. It was your voice; it was unmistakable. I woke up, and it was excruciating. I felt as though I were dying, over and over again. The pain was unbearable. I can't remember what I did after that or how I got here, but I remember your voice, and I remember that I hated it. I hated you for waking me up, and I hated you for the pain, and I hated you for reasons I still don't understand. I wanted to kill you."

"Why didn't you, then?"

"I don't know."

"Do you still want to kill me?"

"I hope I don't strike you as someone who kills people."

"You strike me as someone who wouldn't hesitate to do what he feels he needs to, and you're obviously using me for something."

"You're using me as well."

"What, exactly, am I using you for? All you've done is create trouble for me."

"Yet you continue to allow me to return to you. Even if you didn't know Link was working for the Sheikah, you could have used him against me at any point."

'Used him against me' was an odd turn of phrase, but Zelda had to admit that he had a point. He could easily kill her and disappear without a trace, but he didn't. The worst he'd threatened was to erase her memory of him. Still, he could hurt her, and just because he hadn't yet didn't mean that he wouldn't in the future. The best thing to do at this point would be for her to end this conversation. She didn't know where Ganondorf went after he left her apartment, but she could use the impending rain as an excuse to ask him to leave. She prepared herself to do just that, but then she thought about how he'd pressed her hand to his heart before he offered to teach her magic.

_I exist_, he'd said.

"I guess I was curious about who you were. The longer I know you, the more I feel as if I've always known you. As if I was meant to know you, somehow."

Zelda didn't realize this was true until she said it out loud. She looked away, embarrassed.

The silence hung heavy in the air, and Zelda was afraid. If her suspicion was correct, and if Ganondorf was connected to the monster that haunted her nightmares, what did that mean? What if he _were_ Ganon, and what if he was destined to destroy Hyrule?

And what if she didn't care?

This was a dangerous situation, and Zelda needed time to think. She should get up. She should say something, anything. She opened her mouth, waiting for words that didn't come, and then she felt Ganondorf's fingers on her cheek. He gently turned her face to his before he kissed her.

It felt like the most natural thing in the world. And hadn't she always expected this, on some level? Hadn't she wanted it? Hadn't she imagined it when she lay awake late at night, excited and energized by her own power?

He broke the kiss and gazed at her, his strange golden eyes shining. She raised her hand over his and kissed him back, his lips warm and sweet against hers. When she closed her eyes, she could hear another peal of thunder outside, and then another.

In a distant part of her mind Zelda was aware of the coming storm, but it could not reach her here.


	20. Chapter 20

**In which Ganondorf feels compelled to make his intentions clear.**

* * *

"There's not much of a story behind our relationship, I'm afraid," Link explained. "Sidon offered diplomatic protection when I told him that I wanted to be released from service to the Sheikah, so I decided to accept his help."

Ganondorf suspected Link wasn't telling him the entire truth. A handsome prince coming to the rescue of a humble intern was a noble idea, but it was improbable. As much as everyone adored Link, that didn't mean he didn't have to work to make connections. Ganondorf was certain that Link had gone through an enormous amount of trouble in order to engineer a meeting that would appear to be mere chance. Regardless of how artificial their initial acquaintance may have been, however, Sidon's affection for Link appeared to be genuine.

"You fly in high circles," Ganondorf remarked.

"It's true." Link laughed, completely at ease. He had been forthcoming about his connection to Rhoam when Zelda asked, and he seemed relieved that the matter was finally out in the open. Zelda had been apprehensive about bringing up the issue, but it hadn't taken her long to agree that it was impossible to have an awkward conversation with Link.

She walked a few paces behind him with Sidon at her side. Sidon and Zelda had apparently gone to the same private school, and she had been friendly with his older sister Mipha. Sidon was Link's age, so he and Zelda hadn't had many occasions to speak to each other in the past. They seemed to be enjoying themselves as they chatted. Zelda was never this easygoing when she was with him, and Ganondorf would have resented the way she smiled at Sidon if he weren't absolutely certain of the Zora prince's devotion to Link.

"I'd seen him around the parliamentary building, and I knew who he was, of course," Link explained. "We finally got a chance to talk to each other when we met at a photography exhibition. He knew me from Skyloft, and he was enthusiastic about the photos I've been posting recently."

"I can imagine he was," Ganondorf said, and it was true. Link had a knack for venturing into places most people would avoid and catching details that most people would overlook. Still, Ganondorf doubted that it was Link's Skyloft feed alone that had attracted Sidon, and he had a suspicion that Sidon had been observing Link for other reasons. He realized that he didn't actually know that much about Link – or about Sidon, for that matter.

"Sidon seems to be enthusiastic about everything," he said.

"It does seem that way, doesn't it," Link replied. "But you might be surprised. I don't think it's easy for him to be Mipha's brother, and he's only being like that with Zelda because she's Mipha's friend. I think he wants to make a good impression. There's no need for you to be jealous."

"I have no reason to be jealous of him."

"Whatever you say. You're clearly trying to listen to their conversation, but you haven't looked at them once since we started walking. But that's okay, you'll like Sidon once you get to know him. Most people think he's not that smart, but he has ways of getting things done. It was his idea for all of us to appear in public like this. Whatever is going on with Zelda, not even the Sheikah would risk offending Queen Mipha's brother."

"That's why I consented to this."

"See? There you go. I think you two would get along. I couldn't care less about politics, you know that, but I'm glad we're doing this. Someone needs to buy clothes for Zelda. I admire how she found the courage to cut off ties with her family, but she can't keep wearing the same two outfits on rotation."

"I've never agreed with you more."

"Anyway, I had Purlo put together a wardrobe for her, and he's promised to be discrete. Not that I believe him, of course."

"I suspect Purlo couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it."

Link nodded. "That's exactly what I said to Sidon, but he thinks it would be good for Zelda to appear on social media. And I agree with him. I think one of the best ways for Zelda to protect herself is by making her presence known, especially if the Sheikah are interested in her."

"You think it's less likely for her to disappear if she has an audience watching her."

"Exactly!" Link beamed up at him. "Sidon says that everyone used to call her 'the princess' in high school. She's descended from the old royal family through her mother's side, but I don't think as many people know that as you might expect. The nickname was more about the way she carries herself, apparently."

"I can see that."

"I can see that you do." Link laughed. "Isn't it funny? A Link, a Zelda, and a Ganon. It must be fate."

Ganondorf didn't find the concept the least bit amusing, especially not after his most recent conversation with Zelda, but it was difficult to resist Link's good humor. "You should make a hashtag," he said.

"I already have," Link replied, grinning. "I just need to get the three of us in the same shot."

. . . . .

Ganondorf frowned as he watched Sidon adjust the lapels of Zelda's blazer. It was a relief to finally see her wearing an outfit that suited her, but he didn't appreciate the way she had become the focus of Sidon's attention.

Link could never have afforded this, and people in Sidon's position tended to be cautious about ostentatious displays of charity. Sidon was more than likely planning something, and Link probably was as well. Ganondorf resolved to pay for the clothing himself before either of them could offer.

He didn't understand what the pair of them had to gain from courting Zelda's friendship. Link said he wanted nothing more to do with Hyrule's political circles, and Ganondorf was inclined to believe him. Meanwhile, Sidon could easily have found more fertile connections to cultivate, especially since Zelda had gone through great pains to sever her ties with her family. Sidon and Link both seemed fond of Zelda, and they appeared to enjoy spending time with her. Sidon spoke and carried himself with an easy confidence that was entirely free from the oleaginous stickiness of a career politician. If he wanted to groom Zelda for a role in some political game, Ganondorf reasoned, there were more efficient ways to do so.

Sidon could be trying to charm his way into Link's good graces, or he could just be friendly. Both were possibilities Ganondorf was willing to consider.

Purlo had swept Zelda through a whirlwind of clothing, all of which fit her perfectly. She objected to Link and Sidon's insistence that she keep it, but Purlo silenced her, telling her that he'd have it delivered in a tone that brooked no argument. He'd ordered her to remain in the outfit she most favored, black slacks and a fitted white shirt with gold accents at the collar, which she wore under a blazer cut from light linen dyed a deep royal blue.

Purlo turned his attention to Link, presumably to give Zelda a moment to get used to her reflection in the mirror. To Ganondorf's eyes, there was nothing unnatural about her appearance; it had been her cheap off-rack clothing that had been abnormal. She seemed more like herself now that she was finally dressed well, and she looked just as brilliant as he'd known she would.

Ganondorf gestured her over and asked her to turn around so that he could break the thread holding the tails of her blazer together.

"I'll have this charged to my account," he informed her.

"I'm not sure I'm comfortable with that."

"I'm not giving you a choice."

She turned to look at him. "Why did you set this up?"

"I didn't," he replied. "This was all Link's doing."

"We thought this wild child would never settle down," Purlo said to Sidon on the other side of the room as he clapped a hand on Link's shoulder. "He must have half the boys in Hyrule following his every move. Leave it to him to reel in a catch like you."

Leave it to him, indeed. Ganondorf noticed that Zelda hadn't commented on his statement that Link had arranged this outing. She must take Link's kindness for granted, just as he did. Just as Sidon seemed to, for that matter. The ability to find his way into the trust of even the most guarded people must have come in handy for a Sheikah agent.

Ganondorf could feel the weight of Zelda's eyes on his face.

"You look like you have something to say," she remarked.

Ganondorf wanted to ask her about her relationship with Link, but now wasn't the time. "I don't think Link has ever dated anyone," he said instead.

"How would you know?"

"Just a hunch."

"A hunch? Did you stalk him the way you stalked me?"

"I went through his feed on Skyloft when I first met him, yes. It seemed like a reasonable precaution."

"Still, how would you know? Have you ever dated anyone?"

What a ridiculous thing to ask. "Not that I can remember," he answered.

"Are we dating?"

Ganondorf was taken aback. Zelda always seemed so in control of herself, and it was odd to hear her ask such a vulnerable question. He didn't know what she wanted to hear.

She apparently took his lack of a ready answer for censure. "Never mind, I can't believe we're having this conversation," she muttered, shaking her head. "Forget I asked."

Ganondorf watched Link make a show of flirting with Sidon for Purlo's benefit. They seemed to be lost in their own world, and there was no danger of them overhearing his conversation with Zelda. "I want to make my intentions clear," he said. "If you hadn't asked me to leave last night, we would have done much more than 'dating.'"

Zelda didn't respond. He glanced down and was amused to see that her face had turned bright red. He was struck by an urge to kiss her ear, but he suppressed it.

He lowered his voice. "Let me take you home tonight."

"That's not what I meant." Zelda's eyes were fixed on Link, who had focused the bright beam of his smile on Sidon. "I'm not sure what's going on with you, and I don't want to drag Sidon and Mipha into any sort of drama. You need to understand that I'm not the sort of person to toy with if you intend to keep a low profile."

_Don't insult me, woman_. Ganondorf clenched his teeth and bit back his response. How could she possibly think he was toying with her? She possessed enough magical ability to destroy him several times over if she chose to, and there would be little he could do to resist her if she ever realized the full potential of her power. She could kill him in the privacy of her own apartment, and no one would ever know. Her Sheikah contacts would make it seem as if he'd never existed, and Link would more than likely help dispose of his body. How foolish did she think he was?

Ganondorf looked at Zelda again and saw that her face had gone blank. She only wore that expression when she was nervous. He realized that she may have only spoken out of a sense of insecurity. But why would _she_ be insecure? He heard her voice in his dreams and saw her face in his fantasies. At first, all he could think about was what she had done to him, but at some point he'd started thinking about what he wanted to do to her. He spent his evenings with her and no one else, and the best hours of his day belonged to her. His every instinct insisted that kissing her was a terrible mistake, but he hadn't been able to stop himself. He had no clear understanding of his attraction to her; he only knew that he wanted her. She had the right of the situation – she was not someone to toy with, especially if he wanted to avoid the wrong sort of attention. He was completely in her power. How could she not know that?

Zelda cleared her throat. "Link may not have dated anyone before, but that doesn't stop him from treating Sidon like he's the center of the universe. Meanwhile, you haven't so much as touched my hand all afternoon. I like you, but I'm not interested in being with someone who feels like our relationship needs to be a secret. I've been with people like that before, and it wasn't pleasant."

Ganondorf scowled. Last night she'd trusted him enough to tell him about her dreams and her childhood, yet now she accused him of being faithless. Whenever something happened that she didn't have an explanation for, she always defaulted to treating him like her enemy. It was frustrating, but the friction of these misunderstandings only made him want her more. He was already half-hard from listening to the low and quiet voice she used to speak to him so that no one else in the room would hear. He wanted to pin her against the wall and kiss her until she no longer harbored any doubt about the nature of their relationship. He hadn't touched her hand, indeed. He wanted to _possess_ her.

"I don't think you'd even know how to be with a woman, anyway," Zelda continued in a bitter voice. "You showed more affection to that damn Sheikah Slate than I've ever seen you express toward an actual person."

Ganondorf's scowl deepened. "You seem to believe that I haven't touched you because I regret what happened last night," he said slowly. "You misunderstand. I've been thinking about you for months, ever since I woke up. Once I start touching you, I might not be able to stop."

Zelda raised her eyebrows, and the color returned to her face. "I'll believe that when it happens," she said, the slightest trace of a smile playing at her lips.

Ganondorf touched his hand lightly to the small of her back and was delighted when a small shiver passed through her body. "Yes," he assured her. "You will."


	21. Chapter 21

**In which Zelda says something she immediately regrets.**

* * *

Ganondorf didn't say much in the cab, nor did he touch her. He paid the driver without consulting her and kept his distance as she led him to her apartment.

But when Zelda let him in and shut the door behind them, he wasted no time pulling her to him. She turned to him, and then his mouth was on hers, hot and demanding.

He was ravenous, pinning her against the closed door with the force of his ardor. "I've been waiting for this," he breathed, his voice like velvet on her ear. Zelda inhaled sharply at the sensation.

She put a hand on his chest to push him back. "Can we get inside first?"

He kissed the pulse at her temple before lifting her from the ground and sweeping her into his arms. "Where inside?" he asked, smiling at her shocked expression.

"Put me down," she ordered.

"With pleasure." He began to walk to her bedroom, and she struck his arm with her fist.

"Take off your shoes," she chided him. He kissed her forehead and hugged her closer to him as he stepped out of his shoes. "Not the bed," she said, and he kissed her again as he carried her to the couch and sat down beside her.

She felt his eyes on her as she took off her own shoes and shrugged out of her blazer.

"Do you want tea?" she offered, looking for an opportunity to give herself a bit of breathing room.

"No," he said. He tried to kiss her, and she leaned away.

This was all so sudden. It wasn't as if she were completely innocent, but he was coming on too strong. He had only kissed her for the first time yesterday, and she still didn't know how to feel when he touched her; she still didn't fully understand what he wanted from her.

Or rather, he had made it perfectly clear what he wanted. She would be lying if she said that she hadn't imagined this scenario herself. She was only human, after all, and she found him extremely attractive. She'd even tried to flirt with him several times, but he had ignored every attempt she made, and he'd never invited her to meet him outside her apartment before today.

"How long have you felt this way?" she asked.

"I can't say," he told her. "Probably since the second or third time I met you."

"Why did you hide it, then?"

His answer was immediate. "I didn't know if I could trust you."

"But you knew you wanted this."

"I didn't know what I wanted."

He was looking at her with an intensity that made it difficult to speak. She was used to being the focus of his attention, but not like this, not knowing what his hands and lips felt like on hers. She had envied the way Link looked at Sidon, but it was nothing like this. There was no playfulness or flirtation in Ganondorf's gaze at all, and she was at a loss for how to respond to him. He reached forward and swept a strand of her hair behind her ear, and the gesture surprised her. How could he look at her like that and still be so gentle?

"But every time I thought about it," he continued after a moment, "it was your face I saw."

Did he mean what she thought he meant? Is this how adults were supposed to seduce each other? Zelda felt painfully inexperienced. She needed to reestablish control of the situation, or at least demonstrate that she was capable of playing the same game.

"So you think about my face? What else do you think about?" she asked, hoping to pass it off as a joke.

"What do I think about?"

"Yes, when you, you know."

It could have been Zelda's imagination, but she could swear that his face colored at her question. Good. Ganondorf had gone out of his way to make her blush when they were out with Link and Sidon. Let him see what it felt like for a change.

"The usual," he answered.

"The usual?"

She didn't know what sort of response she expected, but it wasn't that. What did 'the usual' even mean? Was he joking? Was this flirting? Did he want her to be coy?

"That's too bad."

"Too bad for who?"

"Too bad for me. I was hoping for something more exciting."

"Exciting?" His eyes seemed to glow as he considered her challenge. "Fine. Let me tell you what I think about."

Were they doing this? Okay, they were doing this. Zelda swallowed. "You can start anytime."

"I assume you'll return the favor." Ganondorf pulled her closer. She considered resisting him, but she was starting to enjoy herself.

"That wasn't part of the deal."

"It wasn't? We'll see about that." He slid his hand into the open collar of her shirt and cupped her breast. Her breath caught at the sudden warmth of his fingers on her skin as he began stroking her peak with his thumb.

"You're lying on this awful couch of yours," he began.

"Leave my couch out of it."

"It's an awful couch."

"Is it my couch you think about?"

In the briefest of moments, an expression that resembled trepidation crossed his face, but then he flashed his teeth in a wicked smile and continued.

"The window to the garden is open, and the moon is shining on your bare skin. You're touching yourself, but then you look up and see that I'm watching you. You're shy, but you don't stop. You stare straight into my eyes and invite me to join you."

Zelda felt heat gather between her thighs, but she refused to let him know that he'd affected her with something so openly lascivious. "Is that it?" she taunted.

"That's just the beginning."

"What happens next?"

"I've gotten you off this couch and into your bedroom."

"Now we're getting somewhere."

"Oh, but you're not happy about it, so I tie your wrists together with your own shirt. You twist and squirm and try to get away, but you can't. I kneel in front of you and kiss you between your legs. You get wet so quickly it's shameful, and nothing stops me from putting my fingers inside you, first one and then another. I begin to taste you with my tongue. You tell me that you hate it and then beg me not to stop."

"I can't imagine myself begging you for anything," she told him.

"That may be, but that's the last thing that matters to you when you come."

"How do you know I'm not faking it?"

"You scream my name."

"That's ambitious."

"Is it?" He lowered his hand and slipped his fingers between her legs. He began stroking her lightly on the outside of her slacks.

"You're wet right now. I can feel it."

She could feel it too. Nayru only knew what she thought she was doing, but she couldn't help responding to the way he was touching her. And to know that he had fantasies like this, that he _wanted_ her like this, was undeniably arousing. She felt more confident now that she was beginning to understand the game they were playing.

"You're full of yourself. Is that the worst you've got?"

"I'm not done."

"Then tell me more."

"I'm sitting on the edge of your bed. You've got your legs wrapped around me. You're gorgeous, and watching you satisfy yourself as you grind against me makes me want to come. But it's still too soon."

He pressed his fingers into the cleft of her valley and used the pad of his thumb to draw tight circles around her clit, teasing her softly. His breath was hot as he spoke into her ear in a low and languid growl.

"I turn you around so I can touch you while I'm inside you. You're watching yourself being pleasured in the mirror across from your bed. You're embarrassed to see yourself like this, but your body knows what it wants. I can feel you grow tight around me. All you need is just a little more to push you over the edge. I can give it to you, but only if you ask me to."

He interrupted himself to kiss her. It was long and sweet, and she felt its heat gather as he caressed her. "Let me take you to bed," he whispered. His fingers kept doing their dance, and Hylia help her, how was he so _good_ at this?

Everyone she'd been with before had been awkward and clumsy, but Ganondorf touched her as if he knew exactly what she wanted and how she wanted it. Despite what he told her about not having dated anyone, he must have had practice. Her unease at the sudden intensity of Ganondorf's affection returned, bringing with it a vague sense of wounded pride.

And if she let him carry her to her bedroom, what happened next?

She couldn't imagine going on a date with him, much less introducing him to her family as her – what was he, exactly? It seemed ridiculous to call someone like him a boyfriend. Was he her teacher? Her lover? A stranger who'd broken into her apartment? And would the Sheikah learn about him? What if they already knew? What if they _had_ done something to him? What if her encounters with Ganondorf had been staged; what if he had been "given" to her in the same way she had been given the Sheikah Slate? What if he wasn't even human?

Regardless, of all the doubts running through Zelda's mind, nothing mattered as much as the fact that Ganondorf clearly had much more sexual experience than she did. How else would he be able to touch her like this, as if he knew the pleasure of her body as well as he knew his own? She'd always assumed that he was difficult and a little strange, but he was positively charming in front of Link and Sidon. What if he was like that with everyone except her? What if she was only the latest in a series of conquests?

"Stop," she ordered, and he did. She pulled away from him and stood up. He let her, and she resented him; a part of her had wanted him to try to pull her back.

"Those are cute fantasies," she said. "You must have rehearsed them. How many girls have you tried this trick on?"

"How many? None," he responded. His eyes were wide with surprise when she moved away from him, but his expression hardened as he continued. "And it's not a trick. I thought this was what you wanted."

"Why in the world would you think I want to hear about how you touch yourself?"

"I almost never do; I don't find enough satisfaction in the act to finish." A dark shadow crossed Ganondorf's face, and suddenly his eyes seemed far away. She knew she should say something, but the inexplicable distance of his gaze frightened her.

"Are you happy, now that you know that?" he said after a moment had passed. His eyes were once again sharp and chillingly focused. "Let me tell you something else, if you're so keen on knowing what I do with myself. I wasn't lying when I said I haven't been with anyone since I found myself in your apartment, and that includes any fantasies I might have. I don't have time to waste on trivialities."

Although she had pushed him away, Zelda was offended by his coldness. If he was attracted to her, couldn't he have just asked her to dinner? If this wasn't about sex, what did he want?

"Then why do you insist on pawing at me?" she demanded. "Why don't you just leave me alone?"

"I keep asking myself the same question." He took a deep breath. "I should leave," he said.

_That's not how this is supposed to work_, Zelda thought. "Then why did you come here?" she demanded.

"Damned if I know."

Ganondorf got to his feet. She tried to resist the temptation to steal a glimpse at his waist and failed. She hadn't been able to appreciate this while they were sitting down, but he was truly blessed by Din. Zelda felt a fierce jolt of anticipation race up her spine. What would it feel like to have him inside her?

"You don't know anything about me," Ganondorf said in a flat voice as he adjusted his pants and smoothed down the front of his shirt. "Don't make asinine assumptions about how many people I've slept with, and don't presume that you have any sort of claim over me."

Zelda felt her eyes water. How _dare_ he say that to her?

"Don't _you_ presume that I would even _want_ to claim some rejected Gerudo breeding stock." The words were out of her mouth before she realized what she was saying.

"Fuck you."

_Not like that's ever going to happen_, she wanted to counter, but she was too angry at him and disgusted with herself.

"Get out," she told him.

He responded by shaking his head. His face was blank, but he slammed the door behind him as he left.


	22. Chapter 22

**In which Ganondorf receives a call he can't ignore at an inopportune moment.**

* * *

**Content warning:**

This chapter opens with a description of Ganondorf, as a young teenager, being assaulted by a group of slightly older girls, presumably according to the orders of an adult. It is not clear whether this is a "real" memory, but it's nevertheless traumatic.

If you need to skip this chapter, the gist of it is that Ganondorf is grappling with his sexuality while alone in his apartment. After confronting his vulnerability, he begins to reclaim his agency. Right as he's reaching a climactic moment, Zelda calls to apologize for what she'd said earlier that evening.

* * *

Ganondorf stepped out of the Twilight and into his apartment in a storm of bitter frustration. He was so hard it hurt. His groin throbbed with a dull ache, but the thought of touching himself made him sick.

The damned Hylian bitch was right, Demise curse her soul. "Gerudo breeding stock" indeed.

Ganondorf had no memory of who he might have been before he was pulled out of the darkness by Zelda's hateful voice, but lightning-quick flashes of a different life came to him at moments of heightened emotion and arousal.

He had no way of knowing whether any of these visions were actual memories, or whether they were real in any meaningful sense. Zelda said that the visions she saw in her dreams felt tangible and immediate to her, but his were more like twisted fantasies, phantasmal and contradictory. He would see the same scene multiple times, but in different variations and from different perspectives.

He'd told Zelda that he didn't find enough satisfaction at his own hands to climax, but that wasn't the full truth. It wasn't pleasure that eluded him, but his grasp on reality. When Zelda pushed him away, he caught a glimpse of something that wasn't quite a memory; something he had seen before, but never in detail.

In her apartment he'd seen himself as a boy, muscular but as lithe as a lizard, just starting to grow the first patches of hair on his chin. He was physically strong and becoming stronger every day, but he wasn't yet strong enough. He saw himself pushed down onto the stone floor of what must have been a stable. The smell of fresh hay was cloying, and the sun was shining directly in his eyes.

"Is it true, what they say about _voe_?"

A group of girls had surprised him as he hung a saddle to dry against a rough sandstone wall. Their leader sneered down at him. Her shadow fell over his body but didn't reach his eyes. The sun was too bright, and he couldn't make out her face.

The girls moved quickly to pin him down and prevent him from rising. His mind instinctively reached for his magic, but it slipped from his grasp as one of the girls pushed a dagger into the fork of his legs.

"_Voe_ are just animals, good for nothing but labor," one of the girls commented.

"Let's see if you're worth the feed we give you, animal," their leader said as she sliced away the leather cord at his waist.

In a brief moment of clarity before they descended on him, he knew he had to make a decision. He couldn't physically overpower them without harming himself, especially not with the cold blade of a dagger pressed between his legs. He could use magic to hurt them instead, and he wanted to, desperately. What was magic for if not to overcome weakness? But his thoughts were scattered and panicked, and the mental precision he needed was beyond him. There would be no warning to these girls; if he used magic in his current state of mind, it would overpower him and more than likely result in their deaths.

In that instant he understood that he could and perhaps one day would use his power to kill, but he wasn't yet ready to shoulder the responsibility of taking another person's life. He knew this as well as he knew his own name; and, just as he knew his own name, he knew that this must be a test. It was unthinkable that a group of girls would come together and attack him simply to satiate their curiosity.

They must have been carefully selected. Not a single one of them would be so ignorant as to believe that he was defenseless, but they were loyal enough to whoever had given them orders that they were willing to put themselves in danger. They would be mourned if they were lost, and he would be punished for his lack of control. Ganondorf's last remaining hope of escape deserted him. He closed his eyes and submitted to their hands.

There were other tests, later.

He had seen almost nothing of his initiation into manhood, only that he did what was required, his traitorous cock stiffening under bored and unwilling fingers. He could not recall the details of how any of this came to pass, but neither could he deny the shame and humiliation of these visions.

His lust was a pathetic and miserable thing, tugging at the edges of his consciousness if it went too long unaddressed. He took himself in his own hands, but it brought no relief, only a gradual wilting. He desired men as he desired women, and he considered paying someone for their company – perhaps another Gerudo male like himself – but the thought of using someone else's body as his own may have once been used was repellent.

He would have been content to bide his time and allow this aspect of himself to remain buried until it disappeared. Perhaps, when his memories returned, the issue might resolve itself. Until then, he had his hands full of more important matters.

If only he didn't have the damned _dreams_, always of that accursed woman. She was beautiful, to be sure. He wasn't immune to her charms, but she was far from the only attractive person he knew, and his appreciation of bodies and faces was largely abstract. He found Zelda's latent power fascinating, but there were many ways to investigate the source of her magic without any need to interact with her at all, much less sleep with her.

Yet her voice stirred something primal within him, something that had woken after what seemed like centuries of oblivion. He might be able to forget her if he stopped finding excuses to visit her, but he couldn't force himself to stay away. He maintained a meticulous level of control over every aspect of his life, but he was powerless to curb the intensity of his desire for her.

She provoked him by insulting his virility, and he had foolishly responded by telling her about his dreams – but only ones he could describe with words. Others were savage, bestial; him pounding into her with such force that it seemed he would split her in half, her plunging her fingers into his hair as he sucked and bit the peaks of her breasts, him grazing her neck with the points of his teeth as he took her from behind, her squeezing his head between her trembling thighs as he fucked her with his tongue. There were other dreams he recalled in full detail but didn't tell her – her binding his wrists together, asking him to kneel before her, leading him to the edge of release and making him beg. In his dreams, she expected him to dominate and worship her in turns, forcing him to negotiate a precarious balance with his hands and lips and cock, and he could never get enough of her. He would wake to a delirious burst of sensation as he finished, not entirely sure he wasn't still asleep.

That was enough, usually, until today. He had allowed himself to touch her, to _want_ her, and every moment he spent with her was delicious and intoxicating. He'd had to step through the shadows between worlds immediately after leaving her in order to reach his apartment without embarrassing himself, and he'd thrown himself on his bed as soon as the door was shut behind him. He pulled himself out of his too-tight pants and spit on his palm, remembering the wetness between her thighs as he stroked himself. She'd gasped when he touched the smooth and perfect skin of her breast. Would she make the same sweet sound if he slipped his fingers below the band of her underwear? Her nipple had hardened almost instantly when he touched it. Would the soft pearl of her clit react in the same way? He imagined her flesh tightening for him as he caressed her, as she looked into his eyes and whispered his name –

But then he saw a young woman with hair as red as his own, the kohl on her eyes leaving a dark trail down the rouged skin of her face as she cried. She was dressed in the mellow gold and vibrant scarlet of a bride, but neither she nor he wanted what had to happen between them. He saw himself reach for her, his own hair pulled up and dressed with elaborate topaz ornaments, but she refused to meet his eyes.

Gerudo breeding stock, Zelda had called him. It was an absurd insult, spoken in anger and juvenile in its pettiness, intended only to hurt him. But what if she was right?

Yet she couldn't be. The woman in nuptial finery who turned away from him, and the group of girls who pushed him down – they all wore clothing so antiquated that they looked like illustrations in an old book. And the dusty stable, and the coarse stone walls, and the curl of the smoke rising from an incense burner – nothing like that existed in the world he knew. None of it could possibly be real. These were someone else's memories, or entirely artificial to begin with, surely they must be. His body had no recollection of what his mind saw, and his visions never once showed him the voice and face of the woman who haunted his dreams.

Who was Zelda, and what was his connection with her? Why was she so important to him? Ganondorf understood that it was dangerous to be so fascinated by someone with her lineage, and he knew that it would be even more dangerous to sleep with her. If he could uncover what lay hidden within her, and if he could find the source of her power, he could use it to his advantage, and an emotional attachment could only hinder his progress. It was illogical to pursue her like this.

To make matters worse, he'd felt her pulling away from him as soon as he'd gotten her home. He was aware that she was overwhelmed, and he _knew_ she needed time, but he had been waiting to touch her for so long that he couldn't stop himself until it was too late.

Even now, even after what she'd said and done, he could still taste her on his lips and feel her on his skin. He hated himself for his weakness, and he hated himself for losing control, but from the bleak nihilism of that hatred came a desire so overwhelming that it burned. He felt reborn in the flames that rose from the kindling of wanting something so fiercely, something that was just out of reach but might one day be in his possession. He was transformed into a new creature as he once again tightened his fist. The power he felt growing inside him made him dangerous, perhaps even evil. The pleasure he took from himself was not the submission of shame or defeat, but the certainty that he could and _would_ become the master of his own body. He would leave these cursed visions behind and emerge into the world to eat his fill of what he chose for himself.

What had happened to his mind was a mystery to him, but his body was his to manipulate, and the hands that set fire to his flesh were his own.

What if Zelda had been ready for him? What if she embraced him and allowed him to take her to bed? Would she have revealed herself to him, divine in the radiance of her bare skin? Would she touch him with her delicate fingers, grasp him as she might grasp the hilt of a sword, strong and sure? Would she guide him into the tightness of her slit, sweet and warm and wet, enclosing him in a silky soft darkness as he took her, as he _claimed_ her, as she kissed his neck and dug her nails into his back and clenched her gorgeous thighs around him as he buried himself inside her and thrust into her again, and again, and –

His phone vibrated on the floor next to him. He stilled his hand and took a deep breath, and then another.

It was Zelda. He had given her number its own ringtone, one he hadn't heard since he'd known her. She had never once called him; she barely returned his texts. Something must have happened. He cursed under his breath and took the call.

"Listen, I'm sorry," she said with no preamble. "Can we talk?"

Ganondorf didn't respond. He couldn't trust himself to speak, and having a conversation with her over the phone was the last thing he wanted. He would talk with her in person or not at all.

"I don't know what came over me, and I understand if – " she began, but he cut her off.

"I have something I need to take care of first," he told her, the words thick on his tongue, "but I'm coming over. I won't be long. Get ready."


	23. Chapter 23

**In which Zelda is spirited away to a wizard's tower.**

* * *

Zelda was freezing cold, yet her skin felt like it was on fire.

"That was awful," she muttered.

"It takes time to get used to," Ganondorf murmured in a low voice. He tightened his arms around her. She let him even though he smelled feral and wild, like the sky before a storm.

She rested her forehead against his chest. "I used to fantasize about the Twilight Realm when I was younger," she confessed, "but I never imagined it would be like that. I thought it would be, I don't know, beautiful."

"It is beautiful, but we passed through it very quickly."

Zelda wanted to ask him to elaborate, but it was difficult to speak. She was struck with a fit of shivering, and Ganondorf held her in silence.

"Would you like some tea?" he finally asked.

It would have been easy enough to answer, but Zelda couldn't seem to move her mouth to say the word "yes." She still felt disoriented, as if there were multiple versions of her that hadn't yet synced to one another. She nodded against Ganondorf's shirt.

He squeezed her shoulders before releasing her and taking a step back. Oddly enough, she felt warmer once there was distance between them.

"Make yourself at home," he said. He had insisted on using magic to transport them to his apartment, his justification being that it would be easier to talk if they didn't have to sit next to each other on her small couch. Zelda wasn't entirely certain that his intentions were noble, but she decided to trust him.

She also had to admit that she was curious. Ganondorf was meticulous with his clothing, and she couldn't help but wonder what his apartment looked like. Link, who had helped him find the place, was clearly impressed and had even dropped a few hints about wanting to move in himself. He was joking, of course, but Zelda was still annoyed that Ganondorf had never invited her.

She looked around. Ganondorf's apartment was as sharp as his suits and almost painfully stylish. The open living room was like a set for a magazine photo shoot, or perhaps the sort of venue someone would rent for a party; it looked like the sort of place that existed for the sole purpose of being posted on someone's Skyloft feed. The decor was tastefully minimalist, and the space was so spotlessly clean that it didn't seem like an actual person lived here at all.

The polished hardwood floors were accented by carefully positioned area rugs woven from material that was plain but obviously expensive. The centerpiece of the room was a set of couches that were upholstered in leather so finely tanned that it seemed to swallow the light. They were arranged around a low table made of dark wood with a gorgeously sanded finish. On top of the table was a ceramic tray of decorative plants so green and healthy that they looked as though they had just been delivered by a florist. The steel beams of the high ceiling were artfully exposed, making the space feel even larger.

The room was illuminated by standing lamps covered in cream-colored mulberry paper, but most of the light came from the floor-to-ceiling windows. Ganondorf's apartment was almost directly in the center of the city, and it was on one of the highest floors of a recently erected skyscraper. Zelda walked to the wall of windows and admired the view. She'd always loved heights. It was seeing Hyrule from this vantage point, more than anything, that calmed her mind and allowed her to feel more comfortable.

She glanced in the direction of the open kitchen, which was separated from the living room by a high counter. Ganondorf was already walking toward her with two glass cups of steaming water.

"How did the water boil so quickly?" Zelda asked, only to realize that it was an unnecessary question. The answer was magic – he'd used magic, of course he had.

Ganondorf gave a slight nod in acknowledgment of her realization and set the two cups on the low table. He sat down on a low-slung chair, and she perched on a corner of the couch beside him. He passed her what appeared to be a small dried bud before holding a bud of his own over his cup and giving her an expectant look. It seemed that the bud was supposed to be the tea, so she dropped it into the cup and watched in amazement as it bloomed into a crimson flower. The water around its shimmering petals turned a delicate shade of gold.

"It's a voltfruit flower," Ganondorf explained.

"I didn't know voltfruit plants had flowers."

"They're rare, but well worth the trouble to acquire. People with a sensitivity to magic often experience a unique aftertaste when they drink tea brewed from the flowers."

Zelda felt ignorant. How long did it take for the tea to brew, and what was she supposed to do with the flower afterward? She wanted to ask where Ganondorf had found something like this, but she was worried that it would be an awkward question. He said the tea was rare, so it was probably expensive. And what did it matter? It wasn't as if she could afford a luxury like this anyway. She wondered if she was supposed to drink the voltfruit tea with the flower in the water. Before she could ask, she noticed that Ganondorf was already raising his cup to his lips, so she followed suit.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, surprised by the taste. "It's sweet."

"It becomes more complex the longer it steeps."

He took another sip, so she did as well. This time it was mellower but also more expressive. The flavor felt familiar and even nostalgic, like a smell from childhood that she couldn't quite place, like summer mornings and sunlight and –

"It tastes like the sky," she murmured.

Ganondorf nodded in satisfaction. "I thought you'd like it."

"I've never tasted anything like this," she admitted. "I feel guilty for only offering you store-bought tea."

"You shouldn't," he replied, a concerned expression briefly surfacing on his face before his features smoothed out into their usual equanimity. "I appreciate the gesture. I know you prefer coffee."

"How did you…?"

"You never change after work, and your clothing smells like ground coffee beans."

She'd noticed that herself, but it's not as if she had any other clothes to change into.

"Thank you, you know, for before. For covering the bill at Purlo's. I'll pay you back when I can."

"You don't need to. Link and I agreed it was for the greater good."

"I don't understand why either of you would do this for me."

Ganondorf set his cup down and leaned back to look out onto the skyline. Zelda finished her tea. The last sip tasted like the dawn itself. She followed Ganondorf's gaze to the city lights outside the windows. The view was stunning.

"The off-the-rack clothing you wore didn't suit you," he said. "I understand the circumstances were less than ideal when you left your family, but you've been doing everything you can to make yourself transparent. That makes no sense to me. I know where you went to school. You could have gotten a better job. Your best defense against your family would have been to establish yourself professionally, but you went into hiding instead."

"I didn't have any money," Zelda defended herself.

"It wasn't necessary for you to be poor. You must have wanted something, yet you were denying yourself everything. Or did you really see yourself as a lab assistant?"

"I wanted to be a scientist," Zelda mumbled, embarrassed at having to explain herself like this.

"'Wanted.'"

"No, okay, fine. I _want_ to be a research scientist – that's what I planned to become."

"Tell me what you want to research."

Zelda shook her head. "That's the problem."

"I don't follow."

Of course he didn't. Zelda had always been opaque about her vision for her future. The vagueness of her answers usually encouraged people to drop the subject, but she knew Ganondorf wouldn't allow her to evade him. She wondered how to justify her hesitation and came to the conclusion that the easiest way to explain herself was to go ahead and say what she came to say.

"I'm sorry for what I called you earlier," she said. "I just… It's not an excuse, but… When I was at school, my best friend, and my roommate for a short while, was Gerudo, and…"

Ganondorf smirked. "I find that hard to believe."

"Why?"

"No self-respecting Gerudo would let you leave the house looking like that." Zelda shot him a sharp glance. Thank Farore he was smiling. This conversation had the potential to turn south quickly, and she wouldn't get anywhere if he weren't willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

She returned his smile. "I used to wear nicer clothing. I was even considered somewhat fashionable, if you can believe it."

"I assume this person is still your friend."

"She is. To tell you the truth, she's been complaining about the way I dress ever since I left my family. She told me she'd be happy to buy me whatever I need, but I already owe her so much, and… And I was just sick of it, okay? I was sick of always being expected to look perfect and polished every time I stepped outside."

Ganondorf gave a noncommittal shrug. "Tell me about your friend."

"Riju. Her name is Riju."

Ganondorf raised an eyebrow. He apparently knew who she was, then. He'd more than likely return to the matter later, but for now Zelda was grateful that he allowed her to tell her story at her own pace.

"Riju's mothers kept pressuring her to find a boyfriend, and she hated it. They were always trying to set her up with Gerudo men, cisgender men I mean, I think they're called _voe_… And Riju wasn't having it. She would go on these awful dates and then laugh about them with me afterwards, but I could tell she was upset. There was so much pressure on her to find a partner to have children with, and she sometimes used the expression… You know, what I said to you."

"And I just felt like," Zelda said quickly, rushing forward before the embarrassment of her confession caught up to her, "every time I tried to date someone, it didn't matter who they were, they always knew who I was. Some of them would pretend not to know at first, and some of them would even try to hide the fact that we were dating, but the worst was when people wanted to show me off.

"The most awkward dates were always with the people someone in my family set me up with. It wasn't just my father. My uncles and aunts and cousins were always pushing men on me. It was like it was feudal Hyrule all over again, like they thought they would be able to raise their political standing by setting up an advantageous match.

"It made me feel like I was just a machine, just a Zelda who would give birth to another Zelda who would give birth to yet another Zelda. It was like I didn't matter as a person as long as the bloodline was maintained. Even worse, it was like everyone knew that there was something wrong with _me_, but the next Zelda might be normal, so they just needed to get to the next one as soon as possible."

Ganondorf took a deep breath but didn't make any attempt to comfort her. She resented him for not reaching out to take her hand, but she supposed this made sense, given the circumstances.

"Your father still believes in the old legend, then," he said after a tense moment had passed.

"The legend of Zelda? Don't get me started," Zelda responded. She could hear her resentment creeping into her voice, but she made no attempt to disguise it. "And it's not just him; they all act as if they're still royalty. My father married into the family, so at least he's not as bad as some of the others."

"But your father is opposed to you becoming a scientist."

"No, it's not that, it's…" Zelda trailed off as she realized that she still didn't know how to explain her family situation. Riju and Mipha understood without having to be told. This was the first time she'd attempted to describe the awful weight of her father's expectations to another person.

"I'm going to make more tea."

It wasn't a question, and Ganondorf didn't wait for her to respond before standing and walking to the counter at the edge of the kitchen. Zelda followed along after him, and he slid her another glass of hot water over the bar with a smooth and practiced movement. She pictured him as a bartender and enjoyed a private smile. She couldn't even begin to imagine Ganondorf drinking; that would be trouble.

He passed her another dried voltfruit flower, and she could swear there was a small spark between them when their hands met. Ganondorf allowed his fingers to linger on hers, and the gentleness of the gesture filled her with warmth. _Maybe all of this will turn out okay_, Zelda thought as she dropped the bud into the water and watched another flower open like a dancer twirling its skirt.

She took a sip of the fresh tea and tasted more than she could before. If the flavor was the sky, the sun was setting and horizon was stained a deep crimson. The scorching heat had begun to evaporate from the sand, and the stars would come out soon. Riju was always telling her that she was homesick for the desert – is this what it was like to live there, to have the endless freedom of the infinite sky always stretching above you?

"I want to study ancient technology," Zelda began. "I always did. I was fascinated by it when I was a teenager, and I still am. Not just the science, but the history and the archaeology as well. What sort of society was capable of manufacturing such things? What did they use those machines for? And why did we lose this technology? I knew… I guess I _always_ knew that magic was involved somehow. But my family worked so hard to cut me off from my own magic, and I always assumed it was for my own good. I hated them for controlling me, but I hated…

"I suppose I hated myself as well, for allowing myself to be controlled. For _needing_ to be controlled. If I studied ancient technology, would I truly be doing it for myself? Or would I be doing it to spite my family? Could that be what they actually wanted all along? And that's the problem – I just don't know. So you're right; I _was_ trying to disappear. I need time to figure out who I am and what I want."

Zelda drained the rest of her tea, barely tasting anything this time. "I know magic exists, but I'm not sure how I should feel about that," she continued in a smaller voice. "Maybe it would have been better for me not to know at all, because now I can't ignore it, and now…"

"And now you have a Sheikah Slate," Ganondorf said. Zelda caught something curious in his tone. She glanced up and was surprised to find that he was giving her one of his rare smiles.

"Yes," she replied, not understanding what he was getting at. "Now I have a Sheikah Slate."

Ganondorf finished his tea and set his empty cup next to hers. "I wonder if you'd like to see what real magic looks like," he offered.

"I didn't bring the tablet with me."

"I should hope not." Ganondorf exhaled. "It's a tool that replicates the experience of using magic for the benefit of someone with limited ability. We won't need it."

Zelda thought about the terror of her nightmares and the pain she experienced while traveling through the Twilight Realm, but at the moment none of that seemed to matter. She wanted to see what 'real magic' looked like.

"Then yes," she said, "I'd like to see what we can do."

"What do you think of this apartment?"

"It's gorgeous."

"That can't be your honest opinion."

"It does feel a little corporate," Zelda admitted.

"I thought so." Ganondorf nodded in agreement. "I don't have time to fool around with such things. I had one of Link's acquaintances handle the furnishings for me, a man named Bolson. I'll introduce you once we've gotten you out of that miserable apartment."

"It's not miserable."

"Name one good thing about it."

"I like the garden."

"As do I, but it's not properly maintained. Even your perennials will die when it gets colder, and all you'll have left is a bare patch of dirt." Ganondorf waved his hand dismissively. "But you're suggesting that plants would make this space feel more comfortable to you."

He walked around the counter and stood by her side as they faced the main room together. He offered her his hand. Zelda was confused by the gesture, but she placed her fingers into his waiting palm anyway.

"I'm going to create a connection between us," Ganondorf informed her in a low voice. "Tell me if that's all right with you."

"It's fine."

There was a slight tingle of electricity in the tips of Zelda's fingers as a gentle warmth spread across her hand. She was suddenly conscious of the beating of Ganondorf's heart and the buzzing of his nerves and the weight of his muscles. When he took a breath, she did as well. She felt traces of the steam from the hot water on his skin, and she could taste the tea on his tongue. This was much more intimate than anything they had done earlier, but she was completely at ease.

"Before anything, we need to create a place for the roots to take hold," Ganondorf said, and Zelda watched as the wooden floorboards split open at the edge of the far wall to reveal a plot of dark earth that surely hadn't been there before. She could feel Ganondorf performing the magic, and she could sense that it was a complicated problem of balance and substitution. It was like a long equation, organic and shifting. Zelda couldn't grasp all of the variables at play, but she was starting to understand the principles. She'd assumed that she wasn't capable of much more than the rudimentary exercises she'd practiced, and she never imaged that she would ever be able to comprehend more complicated spells. As she felt Ganondorf's magic flow through her, however, she began to understand that what he was doing was not something mystical and abstract. His magic operated by its own internal system of logic, and that system was something she could learn.

"Tell me what you'd like to plant," he said. The words he spoke were mere echoes of the internal voice she heard through their connection.

_Ivy_, she answered, not bothering to speak aloud.

_Let's give it a stone wall to climb on_, he responded, following her lead.

Ganondorf once again proceeded to reshape the world with his magic, and Zelda was flooded with a visceral sensation of vitality. It filled her with satisfaction not simply to see or study his calculations but to intuit and _feel _them. This was everything she loved about math and physics and chemistry. It was liberating to experience magic that wasn't limited to transporting a rupee across the room or summoning a ball of light. This was transforming flimsy drywall into solid stone; this was making something _happen_. Zelda finally understood the intensity of Ganondorf's focus. She was much the same when she was in front of a desk with keyboard and a stylus, after all. But Ganondorf was not limited to a series of numbers on a screen – the entire world was his to reshape as he chose.

_Help me with the ivy_, he requested. _Help me visualize the fractals_. She did, and thick vines of ivy began to grow from the earth and twist up the stone wall as she watched. Ganondorf borrowed her power but fed it back to her at the same time, creating a feedback loop whose continuous renewal lent energy to their shared magic. At a certain point, his magic began to feel less like math and more like music. If she could learn to understand the balance and symmetry and rhythm and flow, she might be able to perform a similar type of world-shaping magic.

Ganondorf released her hand when the spell was complete, but Zelda could still feel the glow of what he had shared with her in the tips of her fingers.

She crossed the room and touched a strand of ivy clinging to the newly formed stone wall. It was as real as anything else in the room. She plucked a leaf from the vine, and a milky bead of sap welled from the stalk.

Zelda's mind raced. She wanted to crystallize the epiphany she'd just experienced. Magic still seemed more intuitive than intellectual to her, and she was afraid that her understanding would fade if she didn't find a way to capture it.

"People must have written books about this," she said, speaking mainly to herself. "If not the specific spells, then at least the principles. There has to be some sort of rational system involved. Was there a transfer of matter? Of energy? There must be some way to quantify this process."

"Without a doubt," Ganondorf said. "But for now, it will be easier to learn by doing it yourself."

He gestured her over, and Zelda joined him by the windows. They were extraordinarily high above the ground, and the glass separating them from the night air was cold. Ganondorf stood behind Zelda and placed his hands on her shoulders. She nodded her consent, and then she could feel warmth radiate from him as he reopened the connection between them.

"Don't look at the city," he said softly from behind her. "Focus on your reflection."

She did, and he met her eyes in the glass. "That shirt looks wonderful on you," he murmured, his voice low and steady, "but we can always order another. I want this one to be something that belongs to you alone. Show me what you want to see yourself wearing."

"Anything?"

"Anything you can imagine."

_Anything_, he repeated, this time without speaking. Zelda considered the possibilities. Ganondorf was correct when he told her that she was trying to become transparent. She wanted to be unremarkable. The professional outfits she'd tried on earlier suited her, but she couldn't picture herself in anything that she actually wanted to wear. Still, she remembered reading about a woman in her family who lived in the era when Hyrule was still becoming a modern city. This woman – a great aunt, if she recalled correctly – was an architect who shared her name but had a reputation for being bold and brilliant and confident and beautiful.

"I want to look like…" she started to say, but then she realized that she didn't have to say anything.

Zelda imaged herself in a dress from the turn of the last century. The garment was loose and beltless, not quite a tunic but approximately the same length.

_Focus on the details_, Ganondorf suggested.

The dress was sleeveless with an open neck, its shimmering fabric ivory white but ornamented with small scales that were lined with bright gold on the inside. It would appear to be a plain white dress if she stood still, but she would shimmer with gold when she moved. Zelda had only seen old pictographs of this style of clothing, but she could almost feel the texture of the fabric on her fingers. It would be as weightless on her body as an array of feathers.

Ganondorf lent her his power, and her shirt _shifted_. It seemed to glow for a moment, and then something different settled onto her frame. It wasn't an exact likeness, but she was wearing the dress of her –

Ancestor?

– and he _hated_ her, he despised the sight of her, he would hunt her down and _destroy_ her, he would –

Ganondorf removed his hands from Zelda's shoulders and stepped away. His absence was so unnerving that she got goosebumps; it was as if someone had turned off the radio during a song she liked. The sudden silence in her mind was heavy and uncomfortable. And the static of thoughts before he disconnected from her – was that real? Where had it come from?

"The dress looks good on you," Ganondorf said.

"Thank you." He was right, it did look good on her.

"That woman, your relative – she researched ancient technology."

Zelda was surprised that Ganondorf had been able to perceive the images in her mind, but it stood to reason that magical energy wasn't the only thing they shared through their connection. "She may have," she replied, "but I'm not sure."

"Yet you think your family would prevent you from researching ancient technology." There was something strange about Ganondorf's voice, but Zelda couldn't read the expression on the reflection of his face. Something had definitely happened between them, but she didn't have the slightest clue what it could have been.

"I don't think they would prevent me from doing so at all," she said. "Some of them – my father included – actually encouraged me to become a researcher. But I always found their encouragement off-putting, not to mention condescending. It was as if they were telling a little girl, 'Go and play with your antiques,' or something to that effect. I knew they would monitor my research just as closely as they monitored everything else in my life, and I didn't want to become an actress in whatever drama they had planned for me. That's why it's important for me to be invisible to them, at least for the time being."

"So you intend to work with the Sheikah."

Ganondorf's voice was still oddly flat, and Zelda thought she was beginning to understand why. When she was connected to him, it wasn't just he who had access to her. She was able to sense things inside his mind as well, and she'd managed to catch a glimpse of something he didn't want her to see. It wasn't that he hated her or the dress she wore, but her family and the legacy of her lineage. And wouldn't that make sense – wouldn't _all_ of this make so much sense – if he actually _were_ Ganon.

Then again, she hated the idea of being nothing more than the most recent scion of an unbroken chain of Zeldas, so the undercurrent of Ganondorf's thoughts may simply have been a resonance with her own unconscious mind. Still…

"Riju asked me to visit her in Lanayru," Zelda said. "I've been thinking that I should take her up on her offer, and I think you should come with me. She's spoken with me about magic before. She tells me it's common among the Gerudo. If we travel with her, we won't need passports." Zelda came to a decision as she spoke. "Let's, actually… Let's go right away. Let's not wait for the Sheikah to find me again. I'm starting to feel that it's not safe for me to be in Hyrule anymore, and…"

…_and my mother is there_, Zelda wanted to say, but she'd already exhausted her supply of courage for the night. A conversation about her mother could wait for another time. She suddenly felt very tired, and it occurred to her that she may have had too much tea.

"Can I use your bathroom?"

Ganondorf gestured toward a series of doors along a corridor leading back from the main room.

"I feel like this is a wizard's tower," Zelda said, only half-joking. "What happens if I go in the wrong door?"

"You'll have to face a series of trials," Ganondorf responded with a completely straight face.

"Are the rooms filled with traps?"

He finally smiled, but he looked as drained as she felt. "Not at the moment. Perhaps next time."

Zelda walked down the short hallway and into the bathroom. It was a world away from the one in her own dingy little apartment, with smooth slate floors and a handsome granite countertop facing a floor-to-ceiling window whose surface had been chemically treated to double as a mirror. The tiled shower was slightly sunken but otherwise completely open, with no curtain to grow mold and twist around your legs in the steam. Like the rest of Ganondorf's apartment, the room was like something in the magazines she read while she was in school and still entertaining fantasies about where she would live when she was older.

Zelda washed her hands and face. The soap smelled like him, as did the towel she used to dry herself. Everything here was so _nice_ – even nicer than what she had grown up with – and everything she touched smelled so _good_. It was difficult to believe that this man had kissed her only a few hours ago.

When she stepped back into the living room, Ganondorf was waiting for her. "I can call you a cab," he offered.

"I think I'd like to stay here," she replied, looking up to meet his eyes. "Can I go back in the morning?"

Ganondorf returned her gaze. "I'm too tired to be of much use to you."

"That's fine," Zelda said, trying not to think too deeply about what he meant. "And that's not why I asked. I mean, it's late. We used magic to come here, and I don't know where you live. I don't have a problem sleeping on the couch," she explained, and she meant it. She didn't want to go home alone in the dark, and she liked the idea of falling asleep while looking into the sky.

Ganondorf took a deep breath. "You can have the bed."

She protested. He didn't respond but merely led her to his bedroom. It was empty except for a Gerudo-style bed that consisted of a low wooden platform supporting a simple mattress covered by a single comforter. The bedroom was on the same side of the apartment as the living room and bathroom, and its walls were lined with the same enormous windows. The lights were off, but the night was brilliant with the city skyline.

"Can I get you anything?" Ganondorf asked from behind her.

"Can I use one of your shirts? I like this dress, but I don't want to sleep in it."

He made a quick gesture with his hand, and a soft terrycloth shirt appeared on the bed, neatly folded into a perfect square.

Zelda started to reach for it but then turned back to him.

"Can you join me? We don't have to do anything. I feel like I'm going to fall asleep the second I lie down."

Ganondorf nodded. "Give me a few minutes," he said and left the room.

Zelda took off her dress and changed into Ganondorf's shirt. The fabric felt heavenly against her bare skin. She undid her hair as she looked out over the city. She was slightly cold but drowsy nonetheless. Maybe they really wouldn't do anything in bed. She might prefer that, actually. It had been a long day.

_I'll just lie down for a bit_, she thought, and her eyes were already shut when Ganondorf climbed into bed next to her. He pressed his body against hers and kissed the top of her head before hugging her closer with one arm. She could feel the length of him half-hard against her, but his breathing was deep and slow. He was so warm and smelled so nice, and she felt safe and secure in his arms. While listening to the soft rhythm of his heartbeat, she soon fell asleep beside him.


	24. Chapter 24

**In which Zelda wakes to a terrible nightmare.**

* * *

She was dreaming. Surely she must be dreaming.

Zelda remembered falling asleep in Ganondorf's arms. She could still smell him close to her, the fragrance of his cologne lightly accenting the scent of his skin and hair. Underneath his familiar small, however, there was something terrible and rotten, like ancient stonework broken open by the elements and left to decay. Zelda was surrounded by the sad and lonely odor of neglect – and something else, something sharper and riper. There were dark stains on her white dress, and she had a terrible feeling that the sour stench was blood curdling in the oppressively humid air.

She wore ornamental sandals whose wet leather straps cut into the skin of her calves. Loose gravel crunched under her feet. She was walking up an incline that may have once been paved with concrete, and there were high stone walls to either side of the narrow road. The stones might have been white, but she couldn't quite tell; the light was curiously opaque. Zelda didn't know whether it was day or night. Heavy clouds hung low in the sky, swirling like plumes of smoke, and the unearthly landscape was illuminated by cinders that rose from no fire she could see.

Every so often a gust of hot air would blow down the path, bringing with it the acrid smell of burning. The banners hanging from the ramparts flapped and twisted in the wind, but they were so badly damaged that Zelda couldn't make out their heraldry.

She seemed to be completely alone. She couldn't see any sign of other people, until suddenly she did and dearly wished that she hadn't. Now she knew where the heavy stains on her dress had come from. The odor of ash and decay grew stronger. It was becoming difficult to breathe.

Zelda hadn't passed any gates or doorways, but one of the walls in front of her had been blown open by a force that left no trace of its passage except a gaping hole in the stones. Maybe the air quality would be better inside. She scrambled over the rubble, careful not to catch one of the flimsy soles of her sandals under a loose chunk of mortar. If she injured herself, there would be no one to help her.

The smell was worse inside, and the putrid air was even thicker. Small sparks emitted an eerie glow into the dimness of the ruined interior of the building. Zelda couldn't ascertain what was producing these sparks, but she was beginning to think they were the lingering discharge of some sort of magic. The light was uneven, and the darkness was thick. As she walked along the filthy carpet covering the corridor, Zelda caught glimpses of movement in her peripheral vision. She could swear that something was moving through the shadows, something that didn't want to be seen.

Zelda had never been in this terrible place before – of course she hadn't – but everything felt disturbingly familiar. There was something about the lines and planes of the architecture that felt nostalgic, as if she had spent time here as a child. But that was impossible; everything she saw was like something from another century.

Zelda looked closely at the arches bridging the pillars supporting the ceiling, trying to remember if she had read about this in an old book, or perhaps seen it in one of the pictographs her relatives hung on the walls in ornate frames. And was the plaster covering the ceiling painted? Perhaps if she could make out the images…

Zelda was so focused on the ceiling of the corridor that she didn't notice the mound of black slime in front of her until she stepped in it.

When the goo touched the bare skin of her foot, it was as if she had been stung by a large and furious wasp. Zelda yelped with pain and jumped back. Her sandal snagged the hem of her dress, and she tripped and fell to the floor. The slime oozed toward her. She scuttled backwards on her hands.

An oozing tendril emerged from the sludge with an awful slowness, and a bubble formed at its tip. The globular mass pulsed with a steady rhythm. The orb split down the center and wrenched itself open, revealing an eye shining with a fierce orange radiance. It was easily as large as her head, and it was staring directly at her.

As if on cue, other eyes popped open along the walls and ceiling in front of her. In the feverish glow they emitted, Zelda could see that that the entire passage was coated in the tarry black slime. Neither she nor the eyes moved; they simply watched each other.

The eyes filled Zelda with revulsion, yet there was something uncanny about the feeling. The eyes were beautiful, in their own strange way, and there was nothing particularly frightening about them. Rather, it was as if they were connected to her mind somehow, and they were broadcasting their disgust of _her_.

Zelda knew she should try to escape, but there was nowhere to run. She could only return the way she came. She didn't want to turn her back on the eyes, but she had no other choice. She climbed to her feet, marshaled her will, and set off down the corridor. She feared that something would attack her from behind, but nothing happened. She was followed only by the same hideous silence.

As Zelda approached the corridor from a different direction, she could see that there was a narrow set of stairs cut into one of the walls. The staircase was darker than the hallway, but she decided to climb it anyway. She placed her hand against the wall to steady herself. The stones felt sticky under her palm. Her foot still stung from touching the slime, and every step hurt.

Zelda was possessed by the unshakable sense that this horrible place was where she was supposed to be, that this was where she belonged. Perhaps she had even come here of her own volition. Still, something was wrong here, something was unspeakably wrong, and she was confined in the darkness with some sort of monster. It was taking its time as it made its creeping and ineffable way toward her, but it knew she was here. It wanted her, and it would have her no matter what path she followed. It would get her eventually, and their meeting would be slow and red with teeth and blood. But the monster wouldn't stop at her body – it would devour her until there was nothing left of her mind or soul.

Had someone left her here as a sacrifice? Or was she meant to fight this creature, somehow? Were there weapons hidden in the shadows of this maze? And, even if she won, was there anything here worth saving? Zelda shuddered as she recalled the scorched earth and piles of mangled bodies outside. Regardless, all she could do was continue walking.

When Zelda reached the top of the staircase, she found that the exit was blocked by a wall of creosotic sludge. Rivulets of its gelatinous mass oozed slowly down the edges of the steps. The was no way to move forward. To make matters worse, she could hear a soft but terrible sucking sound behind her. Dreading the worst, she turned around. One of the eyes descended from the ceiling, which was slick with ooze. A gob of slime dropped down and struck the back of her right hand. Her skin burned like it had been branded by a white-hot iron. Zelda gasped, and the eye lurched toward her on its stalk until it was mere inches from her face. It smelled like something that had died in a lightless hole. She could hear its shriek of wordless rage vibrating inside her head.

Zelda had been struggling to keep herself together, but this was too much for her to take. She began screaming, and she screamed until she woke up.

Her eyes flew open. The side of her face was pressed against the soft linen of Ganondorf's bed, and the lights of the city skyline were still twinkling outside the window. Everything was as it should be, except…

The smell from her dream hadn't dissipated. In fact, it was just as strong as it was when she was asleep. There was something disturbing about the way Ganondorf was breathing behind her. His breaths were labored and irregular, like the frenzied stutter of a broken machine. She felt no warmth from his body, and his arm around her waist felt much larger and heavier than it should have been. And what of his arm around her shoulder? And – Zelda tried not to panic – his arm around her knees?

By sheer force of will, Zelda kept her own breathing calm and steady. She closed her eyes and attempted to clear her mind. This could just be part of the nightmare. If she remained quiet and didn't move, she might be able to go back to sleep. Or she could open her eyes and try to make out her reflection in the glass of the room's windows. She didn't want to. She had never wanted anything less in her life, but she couldn't help herself.

Zelda took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and looked at the blurry outline reflected in the window glass. She could see herself, small and frail. Something had happened to the comforter, which lay in a pile on the floor. She appeared to be alone, which didn't make sense. She narrowed her eyes and concentrated. She still couldn't see clearly, but there seemed to be something crouching behind her. It was enormous, and it wasn't a person, not remotely. Zelda screwed her eyes shut, but that didn't change the fact that the thing was in bed with her, that it was _touching_ her, that it was _holding_ her to the grotesque tumor of its repulsive body.

Zelda swallowed her scream and bit her tongue in an effort to force herself to remain calm. She wouldn't be able to hide the fact that she was awake much longer. What she _could_ do – what Ganondorf had taught her to do – was to reach out with her magic while there was still time.

Zelda took a deep breath and concentrated with as much focus as she could muster. The words she sent out came to her naturally, almost as if they had always been waiting for her to say them.

_Link… Wake up, Link… Please… Something terrible has happened. I've been trapped by Ganon. Please come… Link!_


	25. Chapter 25

**In which Link comes to the rescue.**

* * *

Link was already wide awake. He'd been awake for more than an hour. At first he lay next to Sidon and watched his chest rise and fall, hoping that the rhythm of his breathing would lull him back to sleep. His sense of unease only deepened, so he climbed out of bed and quietly put on his clothes. His intuition told him that he needed to be ready to leave at a moment's notice. He was waiting for something, and he wouldn't know what it was until it happened.

He wasn't surprised when he heard Zelda's voice speaking to him as clearly as if she were standing right beside him. In all honesty, he'd been expecting something like this. Ganondorf was fine on his own, and Zelda had more than enough sense to take care of herself, but there was something about the chemistry between them that Link found disturbing. He couldn't put his finger on what bothered him; it was just a feeling. They were both far too intense and brought out the extremes of each other's personalities, but that wasn't necessarily a problem. Plenty of couples were like that when they first started dating. Whatever was going on between them was something deeper. Sidon claimed that he hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary, but he took Link's concern seriously. Sidon had known Zelda for years, and he cared about her. Link had already written a note to Sidon and left it on the kitchen table. He didn't doubt that Sidon would understand. Unlike Hylians, the Zora made no secret of the fact that they practiced thaumaturgy.

Link's telepathic connection to Zelda hadn't been strong enough for him to hear everything she said, but he got the gist of it. She was with Ganondorf, and she was terrified. Link wasn't concerned about her thaumaturgic ability – that was why he'd been assigned to observe and monitor her, after all – but he wasn't sure how to handle a situation like this. He didn't know why Zelda needed him or what she expected him to be able to do, but he felt compelled to respond to her call for help. Ganondorf was still a mystery, but he'd been acquainted with him long enough to know that he wouldn't hurt Zelda, at least not deliberately. If Zelda was in trouble, then Ganondorf likely was as well.

Link decided it was probably better if he didn't send either of them a text to say that he was on his way. He put his phone on silent and secured it in a pocket of his jacket as he hurried outside to his bike. He strapped on his riding glasses, slid the key in the ignition, and then he was off.

Even at the height of summer, it would still be an hour or two before light touched the sky. The main avenues were deserted. Link had run a swatch of metallic tape across his tail plate before he left so that he could ride as he wished, shooting past stop signs and traffic lights with impunity. The bike, which he'd borrowed from Sidon, was a Komali prototype, fully electric and deathly silent. If he kept the headlight off, he could fly through the night like a ghost. This was no danger to him. He was an excellent driver, and he knew Hyrule better than anyone.

Link loved the way the wind blew through his hair, and he loved seeing the city lights flow past him like streaming ribbons. He loved the smell of the night air, and he loved the steam rising from the asphalt. He loved how the city was never silent. Even in the darkest hours of the night, there would always be a siren going off, or a waste disposal truck backing up, or the shouts and drilling of a construction crew. Every city block contained its own ecosystem; each possessed its own character. Link took a job as a courier as a cover for his position with the Sheikah, but he enjoyed the work. There was nothing he loved more in the world than traveling through Hyrule.

Link had seen any number of odd things on Hyrule's roads, but never anything like what lay in front of him. He couldn't be certain, but it seemed as though all electric power had been shut off within a three-block radius of Ganondorf's building. Given that each of these skyscrapers must have been equipped with multiple backup generators, this shouldn't be possible. There were no emergency vehicles in the vicinity, so it appeared no one had reported the outage yet. If this persisted, however, he wouldn't be the only person rushing to the area. Whatever was going on with Zelda, he needed to get it resolved before the Sheikah showed up.

When Link arrived at the rear loading dock of Ganondorf's building, he switched on the bike's headlight, dismounted, and slid the slender vehicle under the gate arm of the underground parking deck. He made his way through the maze of cars and hid his motorcycle in an alcove by the maintenance office. Using his phone screen as a flashlight, he picked the lock on the service entrance, thanking the goddess watching over him that it wasn't electronic.

He jogged up the stairs and emerged into the room behind the building's main lobby. He wouldn't be able to use the elevators during the blackout, so he'd have to ascend by means of the emergency stairwell. Before that, he needed to find something he could use to defend himself. He jimmied the lock on the supply closet and found what he was looking for, an old-fashioned broom with a sturdy wooden handle. He swung the broom in front of him. It made a satisfying whooshing sound as it sliced through the air.

Holding his phone in front of him like a torch, Link crossed the deserted lobby and pried open the door to the emergency exit. A seemingly endless helix of steps wound its way above his head. With no other choice, he began to climb, flight after flight after flight. Thank Farore he went running every morning.

Link had been in Ganondorf's apartment before – he'd helped him move in, in fact – so he knew where he was going, even in the near-total darkness. Oddly enough for someone so secretive, Ganondorf never bothered to activate the electronic lock on his front door and had even removed the device, saying that it was unattractive and distasteful. As Link stood in front of the door for a moment to catch his breath, he found himself half-hoping that something would prevent him from entering. He had no such luck. The door opened without the slightest resistance when he pushed it.

A powerful odor hit him as soon as he stepped inside. Something smelled like a wild animal that had been hit by a truck, like blood and gasoline and twisted metal and burning. Furious magenta light poured from the hallway on the other side of the living room.

What in Hylia's name had happened here? Link wished he had the foresight to bring something sturdier than a broom, but there was no turning back now. He raised the wooden pole in front of him as he cautiously entered the apartment, keeping his hand on the door as it closed to muffle the sound.

The light was coming from the bedroom. Link pressed his back against the wall of the corridor as he inched closer, hoping to scope out the interior of the room without being seen. Zelda was on the far side of the doorway with her back to the opposite side of the same wall. She was staring intently at something above her. There was a grim look on her face, and she wasn't wearing any pants, but she appeared to be unharmed.

Link gave a small wave to catch her eye. Her gaze only flickered to him for an instant before returning to the object of its focus, but she nodded in acknowledgment of his presence.

"I think you'd better see this," Zelda said softly. It was only after she spoke that Link became aware of the other noises coming from inside the room. There was a sound like the whirring of a broken fan accompanied by a low thrum like an approaching subway train. Link couldn't fathom the source of these noises, but there was something about their mechanical quality that put him on edge. What was Ganondorf keeping in there? And where was Ganondorf?

It was all well and good to come here like a knight charging to the rescue, but Link hadn't imaged the possibility of being confronted with a situation like this. There was something hideously wrong in this apartment. Link was struck by the realization that he didn't want to know where Ganondorf was, actually, nor did he want to see whatever Zelda refused to look away from. Her face had an eerie beauty in the unearthly light, but there was something unnatural and frightening about her expression.

Link made a conscious effort to swallow. His mouth was so dry that it hurt his throat. His heart was hammering in his chest. He thought about leaving, just turning his back on this mess and going out the way he came. No one would blame him. He could call the Sheikah as soon as he was outside. Impa would handle this situation much better than he could, he was sure of it. And he could take as many photos as he wanted from a safe distance. No one needed to know that he had gone inside the building at all. He would tell Sidon, and Sidon would understand. If he left now, Sidon would praise him for his quick thinking and resourcefulness.

Link knew he wasn't prepared for whatever was on the other side of that door.

He took a deep breath and entered anyway.

He had been correct. He wasn't prepared. It was impossible to be prepared for something like this.

Whatever the thing was, it was about three times the size of a person. It had far too many arms – or were they legs? – of varying sizes, and it was covered with some sort of black sludge that dripped from its body in thick globules. The wooden floorboards were already scorched black from contact with the substance. There were thick strands of long oily hair in the slime, but there was no way the thing could be organic. Grotesquely shaped chunks of glossy metal were embedded in the sinewy skin beneath the ooze, and bright magenta light emanated from circular hollows cut into these fixtures. Instead of a face, the creature wore a ceramic plate resembling a crude mask. At the bottom of the mask was a black hole fringed with rows of uneven teeth like clockwork gears. Two spheres of orange light pulsed within the mask's asymmetric eyeholes. Link felt that he would go mad if he were to look into those lights, but the thing's attention wasn't directed at him.

"Do me a favor and take a picture," Zelda ordered.

Link opened his mouth to respond, but no words emerged.

"You brought your phone, right? Please take a picture. More than one if you can."

"What are you going to do with a picture?" Link asked. It was a useless question, but he was still trying to wrap his head around the sight of the creature. Its appearance seemed to shift every time he blinked.

"I'll explain later. And please hurry, I don't think it's stable."

"Is it going to hurt us?"

"I'm not sure. It doesn't move as long as I keep it in my sight. I think it might… I think he might be afraid of me."

"Okay. All right. Whatever you say." Link took a few breaths to calm himself and propped the broom against the wall before taking out his phone. This was beyond belief, and he had no choice but to trust Zelda.

"Just in case," Zelda whispered, a hint of anxiety creeping into her voice, "you'd better disable the flash. I don't know how he'll react to a sudden burst of light."

Link took another breath, exhaled, and swiped open the camera on his phone. The light leaking out of the creature had an eldritch ultraviolet quality, almost as if it were outside the visible spectrum. Link had to make a quick series of adjustments to the digital aperture and shutter speed of the camera to get an image to show up on his screen at all. There was a slight lag between frames, which made it clear that the thing was in fact shifting, but only slightly. The mask and metal fixtures remained the same. There also seemed to be something emerging from its back. More arms? Wires? Tentacles?

Link took a few shots and moved a step to the side to get a better angle. His foot hit the broom leaning against the wall, knocking it down. The momentum sent it careening into the room. The creature let out an insectile screech and lunged at him. Link dropped to his knees and reached for the broom to defend himself, but he knew he would never make it.

"**STAND DOWN**."

Zelda stepped in front of him and raised her right arm. A glowing triangle appeared on the back of her hand, and golden light exploded outward from her palm.

The thing screeched again, making a noise so terrible it made Link's teeth hurt. It flinched and retreated, moving impossibly fast for something of its size.

"Pick up the broom!" Zelda commanded. "We need to get him into the shower!"

Link had no idea what was going on or what Zelda was talking about, but it never crossed his mind to disobey her.

Making use of the broom handle and the thing's fear of the light emanating from Zelda's hand, they maneuvered it through the doorway, down the hall, and into the bathroom. The blobs of goo it shed in the wake of its passage sizzled on the wooden floor. Link had to take care not to step in the smoking puddles, but Zelda never took her eyes off the thing. Its form continued to shift as it moved, and it seemed to be shrinking. It began to look more human as its appendages faded and disappeared. Link initially assumed that the monster had attacked Ganondorf, but the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to come together in his mind, and he didn't like the picture that was coming together.

"Hold him against the wall while I turn on the water," Zelda said once they'd cornered the thing in the bathroom. The shower recess was filled with thick slime that threatened to overflow at any second, but Zelda stepped around it with the assured grace of a dancer. Link had no such confidence in his own ability to maintain his balance, especially not while keeping his grip on the deteriorating broom handle. It made him nervous to think about how exposed Zelda's skin was, but she didn't seem to be afraid of the creature at all. Now that he'd seen how it cowered at the sound of Zelda's voice, Link had to admit that it was somewhat pathetic. There was nothing preventing it from charging forward and overtaking them both, but it didn't look away from Zelda for even an instant. She was right – it was afraid of her.

Once Zelda managed to turn on the shower, the thing's coating of black slime began to melt under the water. As it continued to shrink, its ceramic mask cracked and fell away. Its eyes were still glowing, but it was unmistakably –

"Ganondorf." Zelda said its name, and it looked at her.

"You can put the broom down," she said to him. Link withdrew the wooden handle but kept it in his hand. Zelda might not be frightened of whatever Ganondorf had become, but he was concerned about Ganondorf himself. A monster was a simple matter that could be overcome with force, but Ganondorf had managed to charm them both without either of them knowing anything about him. Even without the extra arms and metal appendages, who knew what someone like that was capable of?

"Ganondorf," Zelda repeated. "_Wake up_."

The orange light streaming out of Ganondorf's eyes disappeared. He bent forward and vomited a torrent of horrible black tar. It seemed to go on forever.

Finally he coughed and looked up at them. His eyes were human once more.

Ganondorf pushed his wet hair away from his face and glanced at Zelda, and then at him, and then at Zelda again. He scowled at them, making no attempt to hide his nakedness.

"Does either of you want to explain what the _fuck_ is going on here?"

It seemed Ganondorf was back to normal. Link let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. He knew he should say something, but there was a more pressing matter he had to take care of first. Despite the sludge pooled at his feet, Ganondorf was gorgeous in the golden glow coming from Zelda's hand. The light was fading, however, and he didn't want to miss his chance. Link couldn't help himself – he pulled out his phone and took a picture. It was a perfect shot.

"For Din's sake." Ganondorf spit a wad of something dark and bloody into the drain before looking back up at Link. "If you're going to take a picture, why don't you and Zelda get in here too. You can use that idiot hashtag you were bragging about earlier."

"Hashtag?" Zelda raised her eyebrows. "There's a hashtag for this?"

"Sure," Link replied, feeling as dazed as Zelda looked. After what he'd just witnessed, it felt more like a curse than a joke, but he shrugged and continued. "Between the three of us, we make a damn fine Triforce trio."


	26. Chapter 26

**In which Zelda has a much-needed cup of coffee.**

* * *

In the end, they didn't tell Ganondorf what happened.

The lights came back on as he glared at them from inside the shower. Zelda felt as though she should say something, but she was spared the awkward conversation when Link's phone rang. It was a call from Sidon, who told them he was waiting outside.

Zelda left with Link. She could process all of this later. For the time being, she wanted to put as much distance between herself and Ganondorf as possible. He could draw his own conclusions from the mess coating the floors and walls of his apartment.

Sidon was waiting for them on the street in a late-model Wind Fish. It had to be the largest SUV Zelda had seen in her life. Sidon had her sit in the front seat, but he didn't ask questions as he started driving. Zelda didn't know what to say or even where she wanted to go. The heavy silence was interrupted by a gurgle from Link's stomach. Sidon snorted laughter, and Zelda felt her face finally relaxing into a smile.

They pulled in at a midtown Telma's and ordered enough coffee and biscuits to feed a wolf. Sidon parked at the adjoining petrol station, and they ate as they watched the sun come up from behind the skyscrapers.

"So let me be real with you, I'm going to tell him everything," Link said between one styrofoam cup of coffee and another.

Zelda, who was still working on her first cup, shot a glance at Sidon. "Is that all right with you?"

Sidon flashed a grin that had far too many teeth for her liking. Then again, considering who she had just spent the night with, Zelda didn't think she was in any position to judge. To each their own.

"It's quite all right. I've been looking forward to it since I woke up to find him gone," Sidon said. "He's a good storyteller, and this won't be the first strange incident he's gotten himself caught up in since we met."

Link leaned forward between the two front seats and related what happened.

Sidon listened patiently. "I have some questions," he said when Link was done.

"That's fair," Link replied. "More coffee please."

"First," Sidon began, looking at Zelda, "you can communicate with my boyfriend telepathically?"

Link reached around the driver's seat and rubbed Sidon's shoulders. "Am I your boyfriend?"

"You are the light of my life," Sidon said, passing Link his own unfinished coffee. "Now let Zelda answer."

"I don't know, to be honest," she responded. "I've never done anything like that before, and I'm not sure I could do it again."

Sidon nodded in acknowledgement. "Second, why Link?"

Link squeezed Sidon's shoulders. "What do you mean, 'Why Link'? Am I not eminently competent and dependable? Am I not the perfect person for the job? Don't I have the bright and shining face of a hero?"

Sidon grinned. "You're a little short for a hero."

Zelda refilled her cup from the cardboard take-out carton balanced on the center console. Her office occasionally had Telma's delivered, but she preferred to go to a nearby café during her break and never drank the boxed coffee. She blew the steam away from her cup before taking a long sip. The coffee was surprisingly good.

"I'm afraid I can't answer that question either," she finally replied. "It didn't occur to me to try to reach out to anyone else. Maybe I've read too many stories about heroes named Link."

Sidon nodded again. "Did he look cool?"

Zelda smiled. "You should have seen him. The power went out a minute or two after I woke up. I could see all the lights go off from the window, and I was worried about the elevators. Link must have run up dozens of flights, but he wasn't even winded. And he showed up wielding a mop – "

"It was a broom! Give me some credit."

" – and looking marvelously dashing. Remember how we all had to take fencing lessons at school? Link held the broom in front of him with perfect form, just like our instructor. Even while he was taking pictures."

She turned to Link. "Can you send those to me, by the way? And don't edit them, just send everything as it is."

"You got it."

"I wish I could have seen him," Sidon said. "All right, this is my last question: Do you think Link might be a reincarnation of the Hylian hero?"

"The hero isn't reincarnated," Zelda and Link said at the same time.

"Only the princess is reincarnated," Zelda added, "but that's completely irrational, of course. If every firstborn daughter of the royal family were a reincarnation of some mythical princess, how could both the mother and the daughter – and probably the grandmother as well – all be the same person? I think the hero is supposed to be a scion of some special bloodline, but it's unlikely that there would be any direct descendants in this day and age. Unless…?"

Link shook his head. "My family is a little weird, and my sister is a force of nature, but we don't have, like, a sacred shield hanging on the wall. And I don't have any legendary birthmarks. I'll have you know that my skin is flawless."

Sidon met Link's eyes in the rear-view mirror and winked. "We'll see what we can do about that."

Too many teeth. Zelda cleared her throat. "Gentlemen."

"I haven't had any visions, if that's what you're asking," Link said as he took out his phone and began typing. "I'm going to go ahead and send you the pictures. Most of them turned out awful, but you can probably create a decent composite."

Sidon seemed troubled. Zelda watched his smile falter over the rim of her styrofoam cup, but she was relieved he'd dropped the question. She didn't know if Link was a "legendary" hero – as opposed to the sort of everyday hero who went out of his way to be kind to people like her – but she certainly didn't feel like the reincarnation of a princess. Ganondorf told her that told her that she possessed immense magical power, and that might even be true, but she didn't have any memories from former lives. She'd experienced enough nightmares to last for her own lifetime, and she sometimes heard mysterious voices, but nightmares and auditory hallucinations didn't qualify as "divine powers," especially if taking pills could stop them. If nothing else, the princesses in all the old stories were supposed to be pillars of strength and avatars of wisdom. Zelda felt confused and frightened more days than she didn't, and she hadn't wielded so much as a can of pepper spray.

But the Triforce that had appeared on her hand was curious. She was beginning to get a sense of what magic entailed, and the light she called forth to defend herself against Ganondorf had been a manifestation of pure instinct, not any sort of magical calculation. When the creature moved to attack Link, she had been furious, and the light had burst from her hand of its own volition. Still, it was a tremendous effort to maintain the spell. She was able to keep the light steady not because she wanted to protect Link, who had recovered quickly from his initial shock. Rather, she wanted Ganondorf to be safe. She didn't want to lose him to the creature, and that desire granted her strength.

Sidon's phone rang, and he answered the call without looking at the number.

_Who does that_, Zelda thought, worried that he'd contacted the Sheikah.

She could hear a woman's voice on the other side of the line. If she wasn't mistaken, it was Riju.

"She's fine," Sidon said. "Do you want to talk to her?"

Zelda nodded, and Sidon passed her the phone.

"What did I tell you about setting boundaries?"

It was definitely Riju. Zelda sighed in relief.

"I've had better first dates," she admitted.

"You've got some funny ideas about what a 'date' is, but I'll let that slide. Listen, I'm on my way to Sidon's house. Fancy a holiday?"

"I'm not sure I can get time off work."

"_Quit your job_," Sidon and Link whispered loudly from either side of her.

Riju laughed on the other end of the phone. "Listen to those boys, they know what they're talking about. You don't need that job. What you _need_ is a change of scenery."

"Okay." Zelda took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "You're right. It would be good to get away from Hyrule for a few days. I've been thinking about what you said about visiting Lanayru. I'd like to go with you, if you really don't mind. But I have one condition."


	27. Chapter 27

**In which Link and Sidon see Zelda off to Lanayru.**

* * *

They drove Zelda to her apartment and helped her pack. It didn't take long; there was almost nothing there.

To Link, whose flat was filled with the flotsam and jetsam he'd picked up during his urban exploration photoshoots across Hyrule, this was an affront. It was as if no one lived in Zelda's apartment at all. The shadow of the crumbling tenement building covered the small yard behind it in a thick gloom, yet the tangle of wild vegetation was curiously overgrown. Everything about the place seemed unnatural, and it felt good to leave.

"No offense, Zelda, but your apartment is a dump."

Zelda met his eyes in the rearview mirror. She was wearing the clothes Purlo picked out for her, and color had finally returned to her face.

"How elitist of you, Link. You start spending time with a prince, and now you have no regard for the common people."

Zelda returned her gaze to her laptop. Link had set up an encoded wireless network for her with his phone, and she was currently using it to download his photos. Zelda was like a different person when she was in front of a screen. She was quiet and reserved around other people, but she brought a focus to her work that was as sharp as an arrow. Lit by the soft glow of her laptop screen, her eyes had the same eerie intensity they possessed when she held Ganondorf at bay.

It had been a relief to cut his ties to the Sheikah, who were engaged in far too many dark dealings for his taste. Still, perhaps Impa had been right to place Zelda under observation.

"I think _you're_ the elitist one, Zelda. Only a rich person would think we common people actually live like that. Speaking of which, where'd you find that horrible couch?"

"On the street."

"You're joking."

She smiled sweetly. "Don't underestimate me."

"We wouldn't dream of it," Sidon said, "but I'm going to have to agree with Link. You live in the sort of building kids tell ghost stories about. Are you sure it's not haunted?"

Link laughed. "People probably think Zelda is the ghost. I can already imagine the urban legend: The lady in the white lab coat. Who is she? What is she doing here? What does she want?" He thought for a moment, remembering the earthy smell of decaying bricks and the dark flicker of the half-dead fluorescent light in the corridor outside Zelda's apartment. "For real, though. Does anyone else live there, or is it just you, alone in that building?"

"My landlord lives there. He's a sweetheart."

"That Goron? Was he born before the Calamity? How is he still alive? Wait, _is_ he alive?"

"He came down to offer us scones, didn't he?" Zelda patted the cloth-wrapped bundle resting on the seat beside her.

"Those rocks are supposed to be scones?" Link shook his head in mock dismay, but his concern was genuine. No wonder Zelda's apartment was in such a state. All sorts of people lived in Hyrule, and everyone had their preferences. Sidon's townhouse, for instance, was equipped with a large floor-level pool, while other Zora lived in humid greenhouses with glass walls. Zora-style arrangements were popular with Hylians, as were Rito-style aeries with open floorplans and high ceilings, but Link had never heard of a Hylian wanting to live in the lightless caves preferred by older Gorons. If Zelda's landlord was a Goron elder, that would explain why most of the building's windows were boarded shut, as well as the general air of decrepitude, but it wasn't the sort of place he'd expect Zelda to choose for herself.

"If I didn't know better," Sidon said, "I might think you'd gone out of your way to locate the most run-down and inconspicuous flat you could find. I'm impressed that you found this place yourself."

_She must have had help_, Link thought. It was quite clever of her, really. If she wanted to evade the Sheikah, why not pick the most disreputable location she could find? It was like hiding in plain sight. If this had all been deliberate, it would make sense for her to dress poorly. Ganondorf would have been conspicuous in this neighborhood, however. It hadn't taken Link long to notice that Ganondorf used thaumaturgy, sometimes without thinking about it. He'd become more discrete as his Hylian improved, but he must have made use of it to evade Sheikah notice if he visited Zelda. Link remembered the riot of greenery in Zelda's garden, a stark contrast against the empty void of her apartment. What exactly had she and Ganondorf been doing in there?

Speak of the devil. Link's phone vibrated with a text: "I'm on my way."

Link took a long breath and exhaled. No one asked for his opinion, but he thought it was a terrible idea for Zelda to spend more time with Ganondorf. There was something going on between them that had nothing to do with romance, and there would be trouble if they continued to act on whatever was causing their attraction to each other. Their relationship might have a chance at success if they were normal people, but there was a possibility that Zelda could genuinely be the avatar of a goddess, while Ganondorf… He didn't know what Ganondorf was. Link thought of the orange light pulsing in the eye sockets of the thing's mask and suppressed a shudder.

He tapped the screen to call the number. Ganondorf picked up on the first ring.

Link forced himself to smile. "So you managed to get yourself cleaned up?"

"No thanks to you."

Link felt a pang of guilt. Eldritch monstrosity or not, Ganondorf was still his friend. "You doing okay?"

"Don't waste my time with pointless questions."

"I wanted to let you know that we're about ten minutes away from Sidon's house. Riju's already there. If you do that shadow-walking thing you do instead of taking the train like a normal person, it's going to be just you and her, so you might want to give us some time."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Whatever you say, boss. And I don't want you using your weird technothaumaturgy on the gate to the access lane, so I'm going to give you the code. Do you need something to write with, or will your freakish memory suffice?"

Sidon, who was stopped at a red light, turned around to speak to Zelda. "This is the guy he was just fighting with a mop?"

Zelda shrugged. "He says it was a broom."

. . . . .

Ganondorf wasn't there when they pulled into the narrow alley behind Sidon's townhouse, but Riju was, and with her was the most luminously gorgeous car Link had ever had the pleasure to behold.

Link jumped out of the Wind Fish, slammed the door shut behind him, and approached Riju with his hand outstretched. "Nice to meet you," he said as she took his hand in a firm grip. "What is that beautiful creature?"

Riju grinned. "You like it? It's an Epona N-class 64, next year's model."

"No such thing exists. How did you get that?"

Riju's grin widened. "Being a princess has its perks."

She looked over his shoulder and dropped his hand. "Thank the goddess, someone finally put you in some decent clothing."

Zelda joined them as Sidon got out of the Wind Fish and went around to the back hatch to retrieve her luggage, a cheap vinyl gym bag that looked like she'd bought it on sale at a corner store.

"I haven't seen you in weeks, and I just had a very traumatic experience. I'm fine, thanks for asking."

Riju clapped Zelda's shoulders. "It's about priorities, Zelda," she said before drawing her into a fierce hug. "Speaking of which, where's that monster boyfriend of yours?"

"I'm right here."

And there he was, standing behind Riju. Link would have been startled if he weren't already used to Ganondorf's habit of showing up out of nowhere. Zelda's face went pale, but Riju didn't so much as flinch. She did look extremely annoyed, however.

Riju spun around and started speaking in rapid-fire Gerudo. Her words were too quick for Link to make out what she was saying, but she was clearly chastising Ganondorf about something.

Ganondorf watched her with an impassive expression before raising his hand to silence her. He responded in Gerudo in a slow and even tone.

Riju stared at him for a moment before bursting out into laughter.

"Am I missing something?" Zelda asked in Hylian.

"Did you hear was he just said?" Riju replied, still giggling. "_Whomst_."

"He does have a funny way of speaking, doesn't he? I think it's charming." Zelda smiled at Ganondorf, and the stiffness of his face thawed.

Riju seemed satisfied as she watched this interaction. "What's wrong with your ears?" she asked Ganondorf in Hylian before glancing at Zelda. "Can I touch them?"

Zelda laughed. "Aren't his ears cute?"

Ganondorf scowled. "We should leave before the sun gets higher. I don't want to spend all day driving through the desert."

"Who said you're driving?" Riju dangled the keys in front of his face. "A _voe_ like you, I bet your feet can't even reach the pedals."

. . . . .

Ganondorf did end up in the driver's seat, which made Link unreasonably jealous. He wanted to drive an Epona himself one day; it was something of a seven-year plan for him. Unfortunately, the way this mess was unfolding, who knew where he'd be in seven years.

"So," he said as he and Sidon watched Ganondorf back out of the access alley with an uncanny degree of precision, "what do you think?"

Sidon considered his question for a moment before answering. "I know he's your friend, but…"

"You're my friend. Say what you need to."

"Whatever language that man was speaking to Riju, it wasn't Gerudo."

"She seemed to understand him just fine."

"Let me rephrase that. He wasn't speaking _modern_ Gerudo. I only caught a few words, but he was using a form of the language that only someone like Riju would be able to understand. I only understood him myself because Mipha used to bring me along to religious rituals when we visited Lanayru."

Link remembered when he first met Ganondorf. He'd spoken some sort of foreign language fluently, but Link couldn't understand him. When Ganondorf started speaking Hylian, mainly by repeating what Link said back to him, he picked up vocabulary quickly, but his accent was thick and impossible to place.

Link had wondered about that. There were all sorts of legends about various Hylian heroes using mystical artifacts to travel back and forth through time, but Ganondorf's personality was as far away from "heroic" as someone could get, and he clearly wasn't Hylian. In fact, he and Riju looked so much alike that they could have been cousins.

"If Ganondorf isn't Gerudo, who is he?"

It was a rhetorical question, and Link was surprised when Sidon answered.

"I don't think it's a matter of 'who' he is, but 'what' he is."

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't want to say anything yesterday, but I don't think he's human."

"Why didn't you tell me? You said you didn't notice anything strange about him and Zelda."

"I'm not…" Sidon shook his head. "I don't have anywhere near the magical ability that my sister does, so I couldn't be sure. It was just a feeling. And I'm still not sure what Zelda is planning."

"What _Zelda_ is planning?"

"That woman is extraordinarily powerful. I discussed this with Riju while you were in Zelda's apartment, and we both agreed that she didn't used to be like this. Something happened to her, and I think that 'something' might be Ganondorf. Between her magic and her connections, Zelda would be more than capable of getting rid of him if she wanted to, but she doesn't."

"He's an attractive man. I don't blame her for keeping him around. Why do you think she's planning something?"

Sidon crossed his arms over his chest and looked away.

Link placed a hand on Sidon's curled bicep. "Listen, we don't have to talk about it in the street. Let's go inside. I just fought a monster and saved a princess. I could use a bath."

"I've already got the downstairs pool heated up for you." Sidon smiled, and Link could feel his skin growing warm under his palm.

"How would you like to go to Zora's Domain?" Sidon continued. "We have records dating from before the Calamity, and someone might be able to tell you something about this handsome and mysterious stranger of yours."

"Are you jealous?" Link asked as he stroked the hard ridge of Sidon's muscle.

"No, but I don't like it that you left my motorcycle parked at his building."

"I can make it up to you."

"I think you should." Sidon covered Link's hand with his own. "You can start by meeting my sister."

"Is that supposed to be a punishment? I hear she's as kind and beautiful as you."

"She most certainly is." Sidon narrowed his eyes. "Mipha is many things at once. When you meet her, I think you'll understand this Zelda of yours much better."

"Are you worried about her?"

"Oh, it's not _her_ I'm worried about."


	28. Chapter 28

**In which Riju encourages Ganondorf to man up.**

* * *

"I'm going to use the bathroom," Zelda said.

"Break a leg," Riju replied, swiping off her phone and shoving it into the glove compartment. She didn't feel like answering Urbosa's furious storm of messages. They would get there when they got there, and then Zelda could explain everything herself.

Riju stepped out of the car and stretched. Ganondorf sat on the hood as he waited for the gas to finish pumping. Riju joined him. They had been driving in the shade of the Gerudo Valley canyon walls for more than an hour, but the metal was still uncomfortably warm.

"I noticed you've been using magic to keep the mileage steady," she said in Hylian. "Where'd you learn how to do that?"

Ganondorf made a noncommittal noise. That was fair; it wasn't really a question. Where did any of them learn these things? His mother probably taught him.

"We're going to be out in the desert during the hottest part of the day," Riju continued. "Do you have any magic for keeping the engine cool?"

"I'll see what I can manage."

"You do that. This car is my _vehvi_. Treat her nice."

Ganondorf didn't respond. Riju studied his expression. He was staring blankly at the way station, careful not to watch Zelda walk across the parking lot.

Sidon hadn't told her much about the situation, only that Zelda was in trouble and might need to leave Hyrule for a few days. Sidon usually wouldn't shut up, and the fact he wouldn't give her any details was concerning, especially since he'd called at the shining asscrack of dawn. Riju vaguely assumed there was some idiot _voe_ involved, and she hadn't expected to show up at Sidon's house to find Zelda in the company of two of the most attractive men she'd ever seen in her life. The Hylian was a bit short for her taste, but the Gerudo had legs for days and could slice bread with his cheekbones.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that this was the unfortunately named "Ganondorf." He'd taken a shortcut along the sunset roads to join them, and he stepped back into the light right behind her without properly announcing himself. Whoever had given him such an impossible name obviously hadn't taught him any manners. Riju didn't waste any time making her opinion known, but when he replied he spoke like someone in one of the old sagas she'd had to memorize as a child.

This Ganondorf was a strange one. Riju had met any number of people like him before, Gerudo who grew up in Hyrule and didn't speak a word of their own language, but they almost never knew magic, and they _certainly_ didn't know classical Gerudo. When Ganondorf spoke to her, he apologized by saying that he'd been admiring the car in the "Twilight," using an archaic transliteration of the Hylian word. He asked if the car belonged to her, and it was so bizarre to hear him say such a mundane sentence in such poetic language that she couldn't help laughing.

Once Riju established to her satisfaction that Ganondorf was a good driver – probably one of the best drivers she'd ever met, even despite being a _voe_ – she spent the ride teasing him in Gerudo. Instead of getting annoyed, he made conversation by repeating bits and pieces of what she said with slight variations. She enjoyed tricking him into saying outlandish phrases, but it didn't take him long to realize what she was doing. No matter what she said, he would invariably use his limited vocabulary to return the conversation to solid ground. Oddly enough, he didn't speak like a Hylian but had one of the most bizarre accents she'd ever heard, like someone living in a literal cave next to some goddess-forsaken oasis out in the high desert. To give him credit, he was starting to get better.

Meanwhile, Zelda was obsessively focused on something on her laptop. Riju knew Zelda tended to get sick when she read in the car, but she also knew better than to interrupt her while she was working. There was no point in trying to bring her into the conversation. Riju assumed she'd hear all about it later whether she wanted to or not. Speaking of which…

"You really like her, don't you?" she asked Ganondorf.

The nozzle of the gas pump clicked, and Ganondorf walked around the side of the car to remove it.

Riju stood up and followed him.

"Don't try to act cool about it. You turned down the air whenever she got a single goosebump on her arm, and you turned it back up every time she so much as raised her hand to brush her hair away from her forehead."

Ganondorf paid for the gas without responding. Riju couldn't decide whether his unwillingness to discuss the nature of his relationship with Zelda was cute or just plain stupid. _That's what you get for being raised in Hyrule_, she thought. And Zelda was the same way, may the Sages help them both.

"She's not a delicate flower, you know. You can set the air at a reasonable temperature and leave it there, she'll adjust."

"She's been in the bathroom a long time," he said.

"She had a lot of coffee this morning."

"You should go check on her."

"How about I give her some privacy instead."

Instead of answering, Ganondorf walked to the back of the car and stretched his arms above his head. Despite the stiff fabric of the shirt he wore, Riju could see that he had nice shoulders. He unbuttoned his cuffs and began to roll up his sleeves. It was strange that this man spoke classical Gerudo yet still insisted on dressing like a Hylian on a trip to Lanayru. She wondered whether he'd had the good sense to bring sunglasses.

"You don't have to worry about using magic once we're past Gerudo Valley. You can make the car fly if you want."

He looked at her over his shoulder. "You didn't tell me the car flies."

Riju was taken aback. Had he actually made a joke?

"I'm just saying you can drive as fast as you want. There aren't any Sheikah in the desert."

It might have been a shadow, but Riju thought she saw a hint of a smile cross Ganondorf's face. "We'll see about that. Don't you want to find out if your _vehvi_ really can fly?"

Riju considered the possibility. Most people took the train from Hyrule through the mountains to avoid the sun, and there wouldn't be much traffic on the road. She was already bored with their impromptu language lessons. This man was clearly talented, and she wanted to see what sort of magic he was capable of.

She shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

"I think you should check on Zelda."

"Ah, _sa'oten_. Fine."

He was probably right. Riju made a rude gesture at him as she crossed the parking lot and entered the station. She winced when the air conditioning hit her face and squinted against the overbright fluorescent lights. She couldn't spot Zelda in the store, so she headed down a side corridor for the bathroom.

When she opened the door, the first thing she saw was the reflection of Zelda standing in front of the sink. Her eyes were bright red, and her cheeks were wet.

Zelda quickly grabbed a handful of paper towels and pressed them to her face.

"I'm so sorry," she said in a muffled voice.

"Oh, honey." Riju allowed the door to swing shut behind her and went to embrace Zelda. "What's wrong?"

Riju felt Zelda shake her head against her shoulder.

"Did your dad do something stupid?"

Zelda shook her head again.

"Is it that _voe_? We can leave him here to die of exposure. Just say the word."

Zelda laughed and stepped away.

"It's just," she said, interrupting herself to wipe her nose. "It's just all so much. All at once."

"What is?"

"Do you ever wish magic weren't real?"

What? _Magic_? Why would Zelda say that? Was this about her mother? _Had_ her father done something?

The bathroom door opened behind them.

Ganondorf stood in the doorway. He was wearing a ridiculous pair of sunglasses with neon orange plastic rims. The stems were lined with imitation rhinestones.

"I thought you might like something to drink."

He held out a plastic bottle of apple tea, the Hylian kind that was at least fifty percent sugar. It didn't escape Riju's notice that he'd gotten the brand Zelda liked.

_Give it to her yourself_, Riju mouthed silently, glaring at him. If this silly _voe_ was Zelda's boyfriend, then he should stop being a coward and act like it.

Riju stepped back as Ganondorf walked inside. He twisted the cap off the bottle and offered it to Zelda. She accepted it but was careful not to touch Ganondorf's fingers. Riju frowned. There was something funny going on with the two of them.

"We'll give you minute," Riju said. "We'll be just outside, okay?"

She grabbed Ganondorf by the arm and dragged him back into the store. "What happened to her?" she whispered in Gerudo.

"I think she should be the one to tell you," he answered quietly in Hylian. "But we should eat first."

"Not here."

"Obviously."

"Listen, when she comes out of that bathroom, you need to hug her. Or at least put a hand on her shoulder. Or something."

"She wouldn't appreciate that."

"You're even dumber than you look if you think that."

Zelda walked out. Her eyes were still red, but her face was dry and composed.

Ganondorf offered her his hand. "Are you okay?"

_Don't do that, you idiot_, Riju thought. _She'll act like she thinks you just want the bottle back_.

For a moment Zelda seemed as if she were going to do just that, but then she put her hand in his.

"I'm feeling better, thank you."

The stony expression on Ganondorf's face softened, and the hard line of Zelda's shoulders relaxed.

Riju clicked her tongue and shook her head. These two nerds were adorable, but there was definitely something weird going on. There was no way they'd slept together, and Riju was beginning to doubt that they were even dating. So why did Zelda insist on bringing Ganondorf with her? The last time she'd had a real conversation with Zelda, Ganondorf was just some creep she'd been having nightmares about after he'd showed up at her apartment.

Urbosa called Riju back to Lanayru before she could pursue the matter, but Riju talked to Mipha, and Mipha talked to Sidon, and Sidon talked to some Sheikah agent named Link, who assured him everything was fine. Then it turned out that Sidon had started dating Link, and Link was friendly with Ganondorf. That was far too many _voe_ for Riju to bother with, and she had other things to worry about besides who Zelda may or may not be dating at the moment. In addition, she'd been more than a little hurt when Zelda asked to move in with her only to move out a month later.

Riju had been even more offended when Zelda wouldn't talk with her about magic, or about her mother, or even about the nightmares she'd been having. Weren't they friends? Couldn't they share anything with each other? Riju assumed Zelda just needed time to process her decision to get away from her awful family, and she had every intention of giving her as much space as she needed – until she got the call from Sidon. What if there were something truly disturbing going on?

In any case, she would have to talk with Urbosa when she got home, and then she needed to sit down and have a serious conversation with Zelda. This Ganondorf, whoever he was, could get in line.

She had to admit that she liked him, though. There was something odd about him, to be sure, but he was easy on the eyes. Zelda seemed to trust him; and, in the end, that was all that mattered.

"Let's stop for lunch at the next station," Riju said. "They have a nice café there. They serve hydromelon parfaits as big as your head, and maybe we can get this guy some decent sunglasses."

"These are fine," Ganondorf said, deliberately adjusting his glasses.

"Well, it's _your_ face," Riju responded, "but your shades don't have nearly enough rhinestones, in my personal opinion."

Ganondorf gave a solemn nod. "I concede the point. I won't settle for anything less than gorgeous."

Riju met Zelda's eyes, and they shared a smile. Yes, she decided, Ganondorf was all right. Zelda's visions might have been prophetic, and he might actually be the reincarnation of a legendary demon. Still, if an impending apocalypse was what it took for Zelda to walk out of the shadows and start standing in the sun, Riju supposed she couldn't complain.


	29. Chapter 29

**In which Zelda comes to a decision about Ganondorf.**

* * *

Now that Zelda thought about it, it was odd that she'd never left Hyrule. She wanted to, of course, but never enough to make it happen. Her father performed visits of state, but she was never allowed to accompany him. When she was older, Mipha and Riju would invite her to visit them during the summer, but her father forbade her to go. It probably wouldn't have been too difficult to persuade him, but she was afraid. What if she said something stupid and embarrassed herself? What if she had one of her attacks away from home? What if she didn't want to go home at all?

The trip through the desert passed in a flash. After Kara-Kara Station, there was only one long, straight road that was empty for miles at a time. Riju was taken with Ganondorf, and she showed her affection by encouraging him to drive like a maniac. All the while she insisted that he use magic, which she talked about as Ganondorf always did, as though it were nothing more than a means of solving a problem. The "problem," in this case, involved reducing the environmental friction that prevented her car from shooting down the road like a bullet. At first Zelda was alarmed by how quickly they were driving, but she became caught up in their game before long. Riju's knowledge of physics was rudimentary, so Zelda found herself making suggestions of her own. The wheels of the car actually left the ground at one point, which amused Riju to no end.

Riju never mentioned magic when she lived with Zelda, so it was strange to watch her treat Ganondorf like she treated each new phone she bought, playing with it to see what it could do. Ganondorf seemed happy to oblige. Zelda enjoyed herself, but she couldn't help feeling uneasy about seeing Ganondorf use magic like this, with complete control and absolute ease. He'd told her that she was powerful, but there didn't seem to be any limit to his own abilities. Zelda was worried that Ganondorf was using her, a possibility she still hadn't eliminated to her satisfaction. Still, it stood to reason that she might be able to use him as well. What would it be possible to accomplish if she had his magic at her disposal?

They arrived at the outskirts of Lanayru City three hours after leaving Kara-Kara Station. Zelda watched the city bloom like a flower from the car window as they drove through the highlands. Gargantuan buildings of white stone and blue glass rose like monuments from the shining gold of the desert. The vista was fantastic and impossibly beautiful, and Zelda resented herself for having gone her entire life without leaving Hyrule.

Traffic began to pick up as they entered the circle of warehouses and office buildings that surrounded the city, whose industrial suburbs resembled those of Hyrule. Once they passed into the residential areas bordering the main city, however, Zelda marveled at how much of the traditional architecture had been left intact. Old buildings were constantly being torn down in Hyrule, where the only thing preserving historic sites were government grants. Hyrule was covered in concrete, but everything here was bathed in green, from the silvery green of olive trees to the creamy green of palms to the deep green of hydromelon vines to the shimmering green of cacti dotted with flowers whose colors were so bright they seemed almost otherworldly.

The roads were crowded, and the streets were full of people. Zelda tried not to stare the first time she caught sight of someone openly using magic – a woman walking while talking on her cellphone without holding it. The phone hovered next to her ear and followed her movements precisely.

Zelda wondered about the rules governing magic use. If Ganondorf could use magic to make Riju's car go faster, could he use magic to change the traffic lights? What was stopping him? Would doing so be against the law, or merely rude? Was there some sort of counter-magic preventing someone from tampering with public property, or was the ability to manipulate electrical devices simply not a talent that most people possessed?

Both Ganondorf and Riju seemed to understand these things instinctively. They got along well together, but they spoke to each other in Hylian. As far as Zelda could tell, Ganondorf didn't speak Gerudo. Or rather, he'd made an attempt as they were leaving Hyrule, but his accent was so strong that it was almost impossible to understand him. Zelda remembered the peculiar lilt of his Hylian during their first real conversation with one another. He'd spoken with a thick accent then as well. It had all but vanished in the following weeks, and now he spoke with the same crisp syllables and enunciation her own instructors had trained her to use when she was a child.

Zelda was starting to understand why Ganondorf hadn't been able to speak Hylian – or Gerudo, for that matter. Earlier that morning she'd used Pictoshop to make a composite of Link's pictures while half-listening to Riju's nonsensical attempts to speak with Ganondorf in Gerudo. It had taken almost two hours, and she'd gotten a bit carsick in the process, but she was finally able to put together a clear image. After magnifying the details, Zelda was able to confirm what she'd seen with her own eyes: the creature in the pictures was partially constructed from ancient technology.

If she asked Riju to show Ganondorf materials written in classical Gerudo, could he read them? If she spoke to Ganondorf in ancient Hylian, would he understand her? Not that she spoke ancient Hylian; no one did. She would have to practice if she wanted to make it seem natural. As they made their way through the crowded streets, Zelda put together a rudimentary plan to test the extent of Ganondorf's knowledge. He may have lost his memory, but he was far from a blank slate. If she could pinpoint the location of his linguistic and cultural background, she might be able to figure out who he was and where he came from.

Once they were well into the city, Riju directed Ganondorf to a gate set up at the mouth of a side road that continued underground. After a brief conversation with the guards, they followed the tunnel for a few minutes before emerging into a large cave. The cavern was entirely natural, with no concrete or support structures to be seen. A small crowd of people came out to meet them as they parked.

Zelda recognized Buliara, the chief of Riju's staff. Buliara immediately began dressing down Riju in Gerudo, telling her that Urbosa didn't appreciate her suddenly disappearing and going off to Hyrule, of all places. Buliara then turned to Zelda spoke in Hylian, assuring her that Urbosa was looking forward to seeing her again.

Riju scowled. "You don't have to give her special treatment, you know. She speaks Gerudo."

"Of course she does," Buliara said, switching back to Gerudo. "My apologies, dear. You must be tired. Why don't we get you some tea, and then we can sit down and talk. I'll have one of my girls tell your driver where to take the car, and we'll have your bags brought up."

Riju rolled her eyes. "Buliara, you're getting senile. He's not our driver. Obviously."

"Oh?" Buliara gave Ganondorf an appraising look. "Who is he, then?"

_Who is he indeed_, Zelda thought. Although Ganondorf was just as charming with Riju as he'd been in front of Sidon and Link, he hadn't spoken to her much at all. Zelda still wasn't sure what to tell Riju about him, and she hadn't yet had time to fabricate a story explaining his presence.

"He's a colleague of mine," Zelda said, thinking quickly. "A tech investor. Neither of us has been to Lanayru City before, and Riju offered to bring us here so we could spend a few days drawing up plans for a future partnership. We appreciate the ride, but we can arrange for lodgings in the city."

"Nonsense," Buliara said warmly. "You'll stay with us. Urbosa has already asked for a room to be prepared for you."

"Rooms," Riju corrected her. "I want Zelda to stay in the suite next to mine, and the _voe_needs his own quarters."

Zelda nodded gratefully, but she was worried about Ganondorf. How much of this conversation did he understand? Would he consent to having this decision made for him?

Not that it made any difference. There was no point in pretending to give him a choice in the matter.

If the mark on the back of her hand was what she thought it was, then she had inherited the Triforce. Assuming this was the same Triforce that manifested in the princesses in the legends of the royal family, then she was _the_ Zelda. She hated her family, and she hated the old legends, and she hated idea that she was anyone other than herself.

Regardless, if there was even the slightest chance that Ganondorf was the harbinger of another Calamity, as Impa seemed to believe he was, then she needed to get him as far away from Hyrule as possible.

It was a shame, really. She liked Ganondorf, and the story she'd made up about him being a colleague wasn't outside the realm of possibility. Putting the matter of his magic aside, he had a deft hand with finance. He claimed to hold no political interests, but that could certainly change. If she wanted to establish herself outside the circle of her family's influence, his assistance could prove invaluable. Still, it wasn't strictly necessary that he operate from inside Hyrule. Zelda had grown accustomed to his company, and she would miss being able to see him in person. She was used to being lonely, however, and it was better to cut things off before their relationship became too serious. Whatever had happened last night, she would not allow it to happen again.

She would need Riju's understanding and Urbosa's cooperation, but it was imperative that Ganondorf stay here in Lanayru – whether he wanted to or not.


	30. Chapter 30

**In which Ganondorf and Zelda fight and make up.**

* * *

Ganondorf clicked through Link's pictures, which Zelda had saved in a folder on her desktop. He wasn't sure what happened before he woke up in the shower. Now that he saw the thing in the photos, he was even less sure. There was something wrong with the exposure, and most of the pictures were terrible. Nevertheless, Zelda had managed to create a clear composite image. No matter how carefully he studied her work, it made no sense to him. It was impossible that he had turned into this thing, unconsciously or otherwise; the nature of the transformation would have broken the level of concentration needed to sustain it. Even if he had managed to accomplish such a feat, it would have been almost impossible to return to his original state. It was highly unlikely that he could have done something like this on his own, which meant there had to be someone else involved.

Ganondorf had been exhausted when he woke up. His entire body ached, and he had a crushing headache. He could barely think straight. He was too tired to object to Link's suggestion that he allow Zelda and her friend to bring him to Lanayru, and the drive passed in a dim haze. He collapsed as soon as he was shown to a room, and he slept until the sun went down.

He was woken by Buliara, the woman who seemed to serve as a personal assistant to Riju. She brought a change of clothes and insisted that he come with her to some sort of banquet. There were dozens of people there, and Zelda's attention was occupied by Riju and an imposing woman he immediately recognized as Urbosa, the Gerudo queen. He hadn't been seated with them, and he was still far too tired to attempt conversation. It didn't help that the language everyone spoke was radically removed from his own. Hylian presented little difficulty to him as a foreign language, but the Gerudo these women used was familiar yet frustratingly different from his native dialect. His headache persisted, and he ate almost nothing. He performed his role as a guest as decently as he could manage, but he took his leave and slipped away as soon as it was possible to do so without arousing suspicion.

He'd kept his eye on Zelda, who seemed to be enjoying herself. He didn't know what she was planning, but he was loath to waste this opportunity to find out. None of the palace staff thought it odd that he inquired about the location of her room, and he was able to locate it quickly. He expected to have to search for her laptop, but she'd left it in plain view in a bag lying on her bed.

Ganondorf transferred the image files onto a small flashdrive and closed the folder. The desktop of Zelda's computer was almost empty. She still had a document labeled "Passwords" in the upper-left corner of the screen, and beside it was a document titled "Diary." He took the precaution of transferring that file onto his flashdrive as well before removing the stick from the computer. He could study it later on his phone.

He'd gotten what he came for, yet he lingered. The temptation to use the laptop's word processing software to run a quick search was too strong to resist.

Ganondorf opened the document and skimmed through the text. It wasn't what he was expecting.

Zelda seemed mostly concerned with the food she'd eaten. Ganondorf couldn't help noticing that her diet wasn't great. She also listed the names of people she worked with, as well as the names of people she encountered at various other places, like the café in the lobby of the office building that housed her lab. She'd annotated this list with job titles, birthdays, and summaries of what these acquaintances said to her, as well as random inanities that seemed to be, as far as he could tell, possible topics of future conversation. Her spelling and grammar were meticulous.

Ganondorf searched for his own name, but the only instances that appeared in the document were small notes on the days he visited her. He kept clicking back until one passage jumped out at him: _I love the way he smells. I wonder what he tastes like?_

Ganondorf felt heat rise to his face. It was time for him to leave.

He closed the document, shut the laptop, and put it back where he'd found it in Zelda's bag. He hadn't uncovered anything useful, but she might have been using a code that wasn't immediately apparent.

"Find anything interesting?"

Ganondorf jerked his head up to see Zelda standing in the doorway with an amused expression on her face.

A wave of anger swept over him. It hadn't been an accident that Zelda left her laptop in the open, of course it hadn't. She'd probably been watching him this whole time. It was a clever trap, and he'd walked right into it. He refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing how much this bothered him.

"You and Link took a disturbing set of photos last night," he said. "I assume you were planning on discussing this with me."

"Eventually, but not today," she replied. "I'm a little tired, what with you turning into… whatever that was, last night. Do you do that with every girl you bring home, or am I special?"

Zelda laughed at her own joke, and Ganondorf realized that she'd been drinking.

He was exhausted and on edge in a place he'd only seen in his nightmares, yet here she was, enjoying herself and laughing at his expense.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," she continued, "but I don't know anything more than you do. I hope you didn't come expecting answers, and I _certainly_ hope you're not expecting to sleep here. One night in your arms was enough, all six of them. And what's that about, wasn't Ganon supposed to be a pig?"

As Zelda stepped forward into the room, her foot caught the edge of the carpet. She tripped and began to fall. On instinct, Ganondorf leapt forward to catch her.

"What a hero." Zelda laughed again as she pushed herself away from him. "Couldn't keep your hands off me, could you?" Ganondorf could smell the alcohol on her breath. She had definitely been drinking. At this point he could use a drink himself.

"I'll get you some water," he said, taking her by the shoulders and pushing her forward as he guided her to the suite's small kitchen. He sat her down on a high stool and then crossed to the other side of the counter, where he found a carafe of chilled water in an old-fashioned icebox. He took it out, poured a glass for Zelda, and watched her as she threw her head back and drank it like a shot.

"How much did you have to drink?"

"What does it matter to you? I'm not a child, and you're not my boss."

"Tell me honestly. I'm going to call Riju if you're going to be sick."

Zelda shrugged and held up two fingers. Ganondorf frowned, thinking she was lying to him, but then he remembered that he hadn't seen her eat. She only had a few bites while they were out with Link and Sidon, and most of the parfait Riju ordered earlier that afternoon had gone to waste. For all that she kept a meticulous record of her meals, Zelda must have some sort of complex about eating in front of people, and she probably hadn't eaten all day.

She handed her empty glass back to him. He refilled it and poured a small glass for himself. The water was slightly alkaline and colder than he expected.

Ganondorf exhaled slowly. The last thing he wanted was to babysit Zelda, but he couldn't leave her like this. Riju would come to check on her soon enough. In the meantime, he might as well make sure that she ate. He knelt and checked the icebox, where he found a few cucumbers and tomatoes, some slices of flatbread, an avocado, a bottle of tonic water, and a small jar of electric safflina liqueur.

He arranged everything on the counter, which was equipped with a small hotplate. He turned it on and mixed a drink for himself as he waited for it to warm up. A half-finger of the liqueur gave the tonic water a pleasing taste of mint and anise. Satisfied, Ganondorf opened drawers until he found a knife, which he used to slice the tomatoes and cucumber as he toasted small squares of flatbread. It smelled heavenly. He peeled the avocado, which was perfectly ripe. He cut small slices for himself and ate them raw.

Ganondorf's mood mellowed as he passed Zelda small slices of toast topped with cucumber salad. She sat on the other side of the counter and didn't speak as she ate. She started with small bites but gradually picked up speed. After a few minutes, she asked him to share his drink with her. Against his better judgment he mixed a drink in her empty water glass. Perhaps it would help her sleep.

"You're pretty good with a knife," Zelda said once she'd begun to slow down.

Ganondorf's mouth was full, so he nodded.

"So here's a thing about Ganon. In the old legends, I mean. Some accounts say he was a demon thief and the most skilled swordsman in the history of Hyrule. Besides the hero, of course. Can you fight?"

"I wouldn't know."

"Why not? No offense, but you seem like someone who would have enemies. What with all the high-powered finance fraud, maybe people come after you."

"There are ways of dealing with people like that. Only an idiot would put himself in a position to fight."

"But could you? If you had to? I mean, without turning into some sort of hideous insect creature."

Ganondorf's annoyance at Zelda's levity returned with a vengeance. She wanted to see him fight, did she? Like he was some sort of animal in a cage. He pivoted his wrist and flipped the knife he'd been using to eat before jabbing it at Zelda's face, stopping barely an inch away from her mouth.

She flinched, but then she and he both saw at the same time that there was still a small slice of avocado clinging to the blade. Zelda grinned and licked it off the edge of the knife. Ganondorf was entranced by the darting movement of her tongue and the wetness of her lips. _I wonder what he tastes like_.

He could feel himself blushing. He looked away from Zelda and set the knife on counter. The day felt as though it had lasted forever, but he was no longer tired. He was starting to feel restless, in fact. Even a weak drink had probably been too much. It was definitely time for him to leave.

"So you like Riju, do you?"

Ganondorf looked up at Zelda. "What is this about?"

"She's looking for a mate, you know. Her room is right here, right down the hall from mine. She's told me before that it's probably better to go ahead and make a baby so she can get it over with and get on with her life. You'd be doing her a favor, really."

Ganondorf studied the blank mask of Zelda's face. She was upset, and for some reason she'd decided to take it out on him. Because he was currently standing in front of her, more than likely. To be fair, he had only himself to blame for putting himself in this position, but he had no desire to return to their earlier conversation about "breeding stock." He picked up a towel and began cleaning the knife to disguise his irritation.

"Is that why you brought me here, to do your friend a favor?"

"It is, actually."

"I'm not interested in 'mating' with anyone."

"You seemed plenty interested at dinner."

Ganondorf looked up again to find Zelda glaring at him. She seemed to be genuinely angry, which was ridiculous. _He_ should be angry at _her_ for leaving him on his own in unfamiliar company. He decided to ignore her.

"Don't play innocent," she insisted. "You were surrounded by women."

"I'm not sure if you've noticed, Zelda, but the Gerudo are primarily women."

"That may be, but you didn't have to let every single girl at that table touch you." Zelda scowled and began speaking in perfect Gerudo. "Oh, what lovely ears you have, how rare that they aren't pointed! What a strong and handsome nose you have. Where is your mother from? Your skin is such a lovely color, you would look so much better if you wore gold. Why don't you let your hair down? I would _love_ to braid it for you."

Ganondorf threw the towel down on the counter. "Enough."

"I'm not done eating."

"You're drunk."

"I'm not, actually. Since you're apparently too dense to figure this out for yourself, let me explain the situation so even you can understand it. I was only pretending to be drunk so that it wouldn't be awkward for me to come back to my room and catch you snooping on my computer. I'm not drunk, and this is a serious question: How can you be so charming with everyone else but still treat me as if you can barely tolerate me? I'm not your enemy."

"Well then, Zelda, how about you explain something else for me – why did I wake up this morning to find my apartment destroyed and you and Link cornering me in the shower?"

"You almost killed me!"

"I have no way of knowing that whatever happened wasn't your doing. I saw the photos, and I got a good look at that thing's mask. That's Sheikah technology, Zelda. While we're on the subject, don't try to deny that you left the Sheikah Slate with Link."

"How did you know that?"

"I have eyes." She had, in fact, left the tablet in Sidon's car, but he'd seen it shining like a beacon in the Twilight.

"Fine. We're all out to get you, are you happy? Sidon and Riju are in on it too. This goes all the way to the top. Does that make you feel special and important? Listen, I don't know what happened to you, I just know that I had to get you out of Hyrule before the Sheikah found you. I've decided to work with them, and I can't be held responsible for you."

"So you intended to leave me here."

"It would be ideal if you stayed in Lanayru, yes."

"Like I stayed in my apartment when you left me this morning."

"You are so _stupid_ sometimes, Ganondorf. What don't you understand? When I woke up in your bed last night, you weren't even _human_. You became the thing that burst into my apartment earlier this summer, and you did it while I was sleeping _right next to you_. Can you get that through your head? I don't even _know_ you. I was _scared_."

"But here you are, eating the food I make for you. Shall I mix you another drink, Princess?"

Zelda slammed her empty glass on the counter. "Yes."

"Fine."

"Fine."

Ganondorf used the last of the liqueur to pour drinks for them both. The mix was probably too strong, but he no longer cared.

"I hope you _are_ Ganon so I can kill you with my own two hands."

Now she was just being difficult. "Good luck with that," he said.

They clinked the rims of their glasses together and drank.

Ganondorf felt better now that he'd eaten. He rinsed a ripe persimmon that had been left on the counter and cut it into quarters to use as a chaser. He put Zelda's half on the counter but didn't look at her as she ate it. Her face was slightly flushed, and the last thing he needed was to see the juice of the fruit staining her lips.

"Did you read my diary?" she asked.

There was no point in denying it. "You should change the password on your laptop."

"So now you know my big secret."

Ganondorf smirked. "Your 'big secret' is that you can't talk to people."

"It's true. I hate making small talk, but I've been trying to practice. To be more 'relatable.'"

"That wasn't a revelation. I was more disturbed by the fact that you're incapable of feeding yourself."

Zelda took another bite of persimmon and chewed it slowly with a pensive expression. "The medication I used to take before I met you dulled my appetite," she explained. "Nothing tasted good to me. People kept trying to diagnose me with an eating disorder. Who knows, I may have had one, but eating was like chewing wet cardboard. I was never allowed to cook when I was growing up, so I didn't even know what I liked."

She took a sip of her drink and continued. "Until I stopped taking those pills, I couldn't even see color properly. Can you believe that? I would just wear white and pink all the time, whatever was laid out for me in the morning. Like it was a uniform. I never imagined I would look good in blue."

"It suits you," Ganondorf said, carefully cleaning the knife and cutting board to avoid looking at Zelda's face.

"That was one of the reasons I distrusted you. I thought you dressed too nicely, and I wondered why you did that. What were you trying to hide, who were you trying to fool, that sort of thing."

"You're saying it never occurred to you that I dress well because I want to look good."

An odd expression crossed Zelda's face. "So how much of my diary did you read? Did you read that…"

Zelda mumbled something that he couldn't make out.

"I didn't read much," Ganondorf replied, hoping she would let the matter drop.

"Don't you care what I just said?"

Ganondorf didn't answer as he put the leftover vegetables and bread back in the icebox.

"Are you just going to stand behind the counter and clean things all night? Maybe you should leave."

Zelda was clearly baiting him to provoke a reaction, but she was right. Ganondorf felt full of energy, and he didn't want to be stuck inside and alone with his thoughts. Perhaps he should go out into the city, he thought as he dried his hands and walked out of the kitchen. He wondered how best to leave the palace. He wasn't dressed for the chill of the desert night, but he could use magic to change his clothing once he got outside. He felt a sudden longing to leave the city and drive into the desert. He could easily find his way back to the underground garage, which wasn't heavily guarded. He should be able to steal a car without any unnecessary trouble, but he'd prefer an ATV or a motorcycle if he could find one.

Zelda grabbed his shirt from behind. As he turned, she put her hand on his stomach and pushed him back against the wall with an astonishing amount of force.

"You're not going anywhere until you answer my question."

Ganondorf opened his mouth, but he didn't trust himself to speak. Zelda was very close to him, a fact his body was acutely aware of.

She rested her forehead against his chest, and he could smell the soft fragrance of the lotion she used on her face.

"I asked if you read when I wrote that…"

She finished the sentence in a whisper. When he bent down so that he could hear her, she looped an arm around his neck and kissed him, shoving her mouth against his and running her tongue along the seam of his lips.

_You wanted to know how I taste_, he began to say, but his mouth was occupied, and soon his hands were as well. His mind was filled with her, and how good she felt against him, and what she had admitted to herself, and what she was too embarrassed to say to him. He pictured her mouth on his body, and then her hands were at his hips, lifting the hem of his shirt and unlacing the cord at his fly.

Ganondorf knew he should stop her. Zelda was angry at him for reading her diary, and she was doubtlessly still upset about whatever happened last night. She may only be pretending to be jealous of the attention he received earlier, but it was obvious that she was using sex to gain control over him and assert some form of ownership. He needed to put an end to this, but she had already freed him from his pants. As she held him in her beautiful and delicate fingers, he was powerless to do anything except watch her do as she wished.

Zelda stroked him with her fingertips as she studied him. Ganondorf could feel her gaze touch him like a feather along his skin. It became difficult to breathe. He made a low noise in his throat. Zelda smiled and stretched the pink tip of her tongue to the head of his cock before enfolding it in her lips. The pleasure was so intense that it caused a violent shudder to rip through his body. The strength drained from his legs, and all he could do was brace himself against the wall as Zelda took him into her mouth.

She only attempted a few inches at first, but she was so warm, and so wet, and she wanted him. As she continued to kiss and caress the head of his cock with her tongue, she stroked the skin at the base, pulling at him in a gentle rhythm.

It felt incredible, but Zelda was still only exploring him. Ganondorf's sensitivity reached a plateau, and he was no longer in danger of losing control. He would allow Zelda to enjoy herself for a minute or two more, but then he would put his hands on her shoulders and push her away. He didn't want to do this with her now, not tonight, not in a place he didn't know while surrounded by people he didn't trust.

Zelda strengthened her grip at the base of his cock and then took as much of him as she could into her mouth. She wrapped her tongue around his overheated skin and slid her lips along him in a tight vise of the softest silk. Her strokes were no longer gentle, but fierce and insistent. Without knowing it, he had already passed the point of no return, and there was nothing he could do to deny her.

He was so hard he could barely stand it; he felt like an iron spring had tightened in his gut. Everything about this was wrong, but by the gods, he wanted her.

Ganondorf gasped, and his hips jerked forward as he came. He gave an involuntary moan of pleasure, and then it was over. He shuddered and slid down the wall as he lost the strength to remain standing.

Sitting on the floor, he was now face to face with Zelda. She met his eyes, smiled, and wiped her lips with the back of her hand.

Zelda had most certainly planned this. She had wanted something from him, and she took it. He expected nothing less of her.

Ganondorf reached forward and enclosed Zelda in his arms, pulling her into his lap and cradling her head against his chest. His desire had been temporarily sated, but he still wanted her. He wanted to hold her, to keep her close to him, to wrap her up inside himself and never let her go. He felt the urge to possess her like a primal instinct welling up from deep inside his mind. Whoever he had been before he woke up in Hyrule, _whatever_ he had been – that part of himself sent him visions of lives he couldn't possibly have led while filling his sleeping mind with dreams of this woman. He was afraid of what lay hidden inside him, but it wanted her, and he wanted her as well.


	31. Chapter 31

**In which Zelda is properly outfitted.**

* * *

"You don't have to steal a car, you know," Zelda said as she handed Ganondorf her extra toothbrush. She'd bought it for him weeks ago, thinking that there might come a time when he'd spend the night. She never imagined that she'd end up bringing it all the way to Lanayru, but Link insisted that she take it with her when he helped her pack. She wanted to travel light, but he'd made her take along all sorts of things she'd probably never use, telling her that it was better to be safe than sorry.

"We can just borrow one of Riju's cars," she explained to Ganondorf as she passed him a tube of toothpaste.

He met her eyes in the mirror and raised an eyebrow.

"Riju gave me the keys to the car she used to drive in college. The roof might be a little low for you, but it's a convertible. If you don't like it, I'm sure we can take another one."

Zelda paused, wondering if she should go ahead and say what she wanted to tell him. Most people wouldn't need to hear something like this, but Ganondorf wasn't 'most people.'

"You're a guest here, not a prisoner."

"Duly noted."

The conversation ended as they brushed their teeth. _Is this normal?_ Zelda thought. _Is this what normal people do when they're together like this?_

Earlier Ganondorf had held her with an intensity she found almost frightening. She never felt entirely safe with him, but there was something soothing about listening to the rhythm of his heartbeat as his chest rose and fell. Zelda didn't know what possessed her to do what she did, but she felt better now that she'd done it. So much for creating a sense of distance.

"I need to get away from this place," Ganondorf told her after his breathing had become calmer and more even. They were so close that she could feel the rumble of his voice through her skin. "I want to go out. I'll bring you along, if you like."

"You want to go out," she repeated. It was probably too late to get a table at a restaurant. Zelda wondered if he wanted to go to a bar, or possibly even a club. Both possibilities seemed unlikely. Ganondorf didn't strike her as the type to go out drinking; but, then again, she didn't really know him. She had no idea what he did for fun. To be honest, she couldn't imagine him having fun at all.

"I want to drive out to the desert."

Zelda nodded against his chest, relieved. "Then I'd like to go with you," she said. She felt much less on edge now that she'd eaten, and the drinks Ganondorf made for her had cleared up the headache she'd developed from spending too much time in the sun. She usually went to bed early, but she was more awake now than she'd ever been in her life.

And, if Ganondorf wanted to drive through the desert, she already had a destination in mind.

Zelda had been close to Urbosa when she was younger, and it was good to see her again after so many years. She wasn't in the mood for small talk, however, and she didn't want to wait until tomorrow to explain why she'd brought herself and Ganondorf to Lanayru. Earlier that evening she admitted to Urbosa that she was learning magic, and that Ganondorf was teaching her. She had no desire to go into the details of how they'd met, so she simply said that they were both interested in learning about who his family was and whether they could be located.

Urbosa frowned with distaste when she heard the name "Ganondorf" but didn't say anything. Zelda continued, explaining that Ganondorf didn't speak modern Gerudo but was able to understand an older form of the language. Riju, who had been drinking steadily through the evening, mentioned something about how it might be interesting to take Ganondorf to the ruins of the Arbiter's Grounds.

Zelda vaguely remembered having heard that name somewhere before. She took out her phone to type a note to herself, but Urbosa gently put her hand over Zelda's screen while shaking her head at Riju, who responded by laughing and finishing her drink. Zelda wondered if Riju's comment about these ruins was some sort of joke. Perhaps the Arbiter's Grounds weren't ruins at all but a resort of some kind, and Riju was suggesting that she stop worrying and let herself take a vacation – or something to that effect. Only later was Zelda struck by how skillful Urbosa had been in immediately steering the conversation away from the topic. There must be something there, then.

Once Urbosa excused herself to talk with someone else, Zelda took the opportunity to run a search on her phone. The Arbiter's Grounds were indeed an actual set of ruins, and they were marked with a specific location on Navi Maps. The site was in the middle of nowhere, and it would probably take an entire day to drive out that far. Riju, who had been watching Zelda's screen, offered a suggestion. She was well on her way to becoming intoxicated, but her advice was plausible. Why not travel through the Twilight? It would take mere minutes, if even that.

If Ganondorf wanted to drive out into the desert in the dead of night, why not go to the Arbiter's Grounds?

Zelda rinsed her face and looked at her reflection. She could see Ganondorf standing behind her in the mirror. "Don't watch," she said, embarrassed.

"You're beautiful," he said in Gerudo. Zelda was caught off guard by the bluntness of the compliment but quickly realized that Ganondorf was mimicking her Hylian accent.

"What lovely ears you have," he continued, smirking as he removed the pins from her hair. "They're so slender and shapely, and your nose is so tiny and adorable. You must come from a good family. Your skin is such a lovely color. You should wear more silver to bring out the blush in your cheeks, and you should let your hair down. I would _love_to braid it for you."

"Sweet Farore, will you shut up."

Ganondorf raked his fingers through her hair to comb it before twisting it up into an elegant plait, which he secured with the pins he'd just removed. Zelda struggled to coax her hair into doing anything besides falling straight down with a part in the middle, but it only took Ganondorf a few seconds to make her look as if she were a movie star. She envied how effortless he made it seem.

"Where did you learn to do that?"

"I didn't trust myself to cut my own hair, so I figured it out."

"Weren't you staying with Link? When you first, you know. Came to Hyrule?"

"Yes. You can blame him, since I didn't trust him to cut my hair either." Ganondorf squeezed her shoulders and touched his lips to the top her head before stepping away. "I assume you didn't bring anything that would be appropriate to wear in the desert."

"It can't get that cold, can it?"

"Put on what you have. We'll see what we can do."

Zelda walked back into the bedroom and rummaged through her duffel bag. She took out a light jacket, which was the only suitable thing she'd brought with her. She hadn't planned to go out at night, and she didn't have that many clothes to begin with. The cheap jacket clashed with the new outfit she'd worn to dinner, but it would have to do. Instead of putting it on, she draped it over her shoulders and prepared herself to retaliate against whatever snide remark Ganondorf threw at her. He could be kind when it suited his mood, but he'd never once spared her feelings when it came to sartorial matters.

Zelda turned to see Ganondorf walk out of the bathroom dressed as though he had just stepped out of another century. She'd been half-expecting him to magic himself into a coat and scarf, but he was wearing some sort of cloak, of all things, and tall fleece-lined boots with flat soles.

"You can't go out looking like that," Zelda said before she could stop herself.

"I believe you're mistaken," Ganondorf replied. He didn't comment on her jacket, but the disdain was clear in his eyes. "It's you who can't go out dressed like _that_. You'll catch your death from the cold, and I'm the one who'll be blamed."

It may have been an effect of the period-drama costume he wore, but Zelda could almost feel the magical energy welling up around Ganondorf as he approached her. "Allow me," he said. Zelda considered telling him to let her be, but she decided that she didn't care how ridiculous she looked. If Ganondorf wanted to dress like a medieval warlord, then they might as well match. She nodded her assent, thinking that she would have to get a picture for Link.

Ganondorf placed the tips of his fingers onto her jacket. It shimmered with an iridescent glow like the shine on a soap bubble before transforming into a short mantle. Ganondorf then changed her shirt into a thick and tightly fitted sweater. He ran his hands down her arms to her waist and gave her long pants made of a soft Rito fabric. He knelt in front of her and studied her feet with an intensity she found embarrassing. After a moment, he placed his palms against ankle boots and reconstructed them into a pair of high boots like the ones he wore, fashioned from leather and lined with soft wool. The flat soles were oddly balanced, and Zelda realized that these must be sand boots. Ganondorf took an extra moment to adjust the cords securing the boots so that they fit comfortably on her calves.

The way he touched her, not with his hands but with his magic, was infinitely more intimate than what they'd done before. Zelda had forced herself on him solely out of frustration, both with him and with herself. While they ate, she watched him as he watched her. She knew he wouldn't resist her advances, but the act was over almost as quickly as it had begun, more of a transaction than an expression of desire. Now, as he reshaped her clothing directly against her skin, even her loose pants felt far too tight between her legs.

Ganondorf rose to his feet and kissed her. He maintained the space between them and touched only her face, but his mouth was insistent. Zelda opened herself to him, tasting his tongue and sharing his breath.

She understood the invitation he was extending to her, and she wanted to press herself against him in response, but she refrained. There would be other opportunities later. For the time being, Zelda was more interested in the implications of his offer to take her with him as he drove into the night. In the desert, there would be no one to watch them and no need to disguise their magic. If she was 'the' Zelda, and if she truly had the power of the Triforce at her command, she wanted to see just what she could do.

She still didn't trust Ganondorf, and she knew it was dangerous to go alone with him into a wasteland far from civilization without telling anyone. Regardless, she could handle herself, especially if she was free to act on her own without any fear of the consequences. Thankfully, Ganondorf didn't seem to have read what she wrote about him in her diary: _If I have to kill him, I will_.


	32. Chapter 32

**In which Zelda and Ganondorf travel by Twilight.**

* * *

Zelda pushed herself away from Ganondorf.

"There's someplace I'd like to go," she said.

He nodded and adjusted the front of his pants. Zelda willed herself not to look. Instead, she walked to the kitchen to retrieve her phone, which she'd left on the counter. She brought up the location of the ruins Riju told her about on Navi Maps and handed her phone to Ganondorf.

He tapped the screen a few times and gave the phone back to her.

"It's too far away," he said, "but you must know that. What are you proposing?"

"I thought we could use the Twilight."

Ganondorf frowned. "I've never been to this place. I can't take us there instantly. We'd have to follow the road through the Twilight. I can do that, but it won't be easy for you."

"Riju explained all that. She said a lot of people don't adjust well to the 'sunset roads' – that's what she calls it – but that there are ways of dealing with the sickness. She told me that she's never been able to tolerate the nausea, but she brought a charm with her to Hyrule. Just in case, she said. She told me that charms like this aren't easy to come by, but that I could have hers for the time being."

What Riju had given her was a small teardrop-shaped pendant. It was as flawless as a diamond, but its pellucid surface was smooth to the touch. The stone – if that was what it was – was attached to a leather cord that Riju fastened around her neck before she left the table.

"Riju told me that you used the sunset roads to come to Sidon's house this morning," Zelda continued as she untied the knot. "She said you were quite rude about it, actually."

"I'm aware of her opinion."

Zelda presented the pendant to Ganondorf, dropping it into his open palm. He flinched and immediately passed it back to her.

"Do you know what this is?" she asked, intrigued by his reaction.

Ganondorf shook his head. "I assume it doesn't bother you to touch this," he said.

"No, I don't feel anything at all."

Ganondorf wiped his hand on his pants. "Let's hope it works, then."

. . . . . . .

Zelda appreciated her heavy clothing once they got outside.

Ganondorf rolled the roof of the car back and blasted the heat on high. The contrast between the warmth at Zelda's feet and the cold night air on her face was exhilarating.

It was late at night and quite chilly, but light exploded from every surface of the city. People were everywhere, and no one bothered to stay out of the street. Ganondorf navigated the route recommended by Navi Maps with a calm assurance. He didn't attempt to make conversation, but the silence was comfortable. Zelda enjoyed listening to the sounds of the people who shared the road with them: people on bikes and on motorcycles and on foot, people coming back from eating and people going out drinking, people in the open-air markets and people making deliveries, people closing the shutters of their shops and people lighting the lamps hanging outside midnight bars.

_This is nothing like Hyrule_, Zelda thought as she watched the city ebb and flow around her. _What if I didn't go back home? What if I stayed here?_A startling possibility occurred to her. _What if I didn't have to hide my magic?_

And then, on the heels of that thought – _What if I didn't have to be Zelda? What if my life didn't have to be dictated by my family?_

"Don't be like your mother," her father had once said to her in anger. She had been young, scarcely ten years old. Everyone in her class had been invited to a birthday party that was scheduled for the weekend of a family wedding, and she begged to be allowed to attend. "You must take your responsibilities seriously," her father admonished her, "and not run away from your duty."

But whose duty was it, really? Hers, or her family's? And why must she bear the responsibility of representing her family? Hyrule wasn't a monarchy anymore. In fact, the country had been able to establish itself as a modern nation precisely because its feudal traditions had been abandoned.

It was something to think about, in any case. Zelda hadn't been in Lanayru for a full day, and there was no point in romanticizing another country simply because it was different from Hyrule. Come to think of it, Riju probably had her reasons for wanting to study in Hyrule instead of at one of the many universities here in Lanayru. She would need to ask Riju's opinion before making any decisions.

And what of the Sheikah Slate that Purah had entrusted to her? What about the other artifacts of ancient technology Purah promised she would be able to study? If she was 'Zelda,' did that mean she possessed the magic that could make these machines work again? Could Ganondorf use ancient technology? If he could remove the seal on the Sheikah Slate, what else could he do? Could he activate a Guardian?

No, that might be going too far. It would be better not to find out.

Zelda wanted nothing more than to find out.

They left the city behind as they drove into the open desert. The lingering glow of the skyscraper lights transformed the sand into a kaleidoscope of colors. Before long, however, there was only moonlight glinting off the mica of the pavement.

"Are you ready?" Ganondorf asked, raising his voice above the roar of the wind.

Zelda nodded. She was as ready as she'd ever be.

Ganondorf shifted gears and stepped on the gas, and the night of the world turned upside down.

The earth became black, and the sky was illuminated by an uncanny golden glow. It was like a photographic negative, but much stranger and more beautiful.

Zelda wasn't cold, and nothing hurt. She removed the teardrop pendant from her shirt. It emitted a faint cerulean glow. The wind in her ears disappeared, and she could hear nothing except the barely perceptible hum of the car's electric engine as they flew along the road, which glowed green as if seen through night vision goggles.

Zelda glanced at the screen of her phone, which Ganondorf had secured to the dashboard. The display was glitched. Ganondorf didn't seem to be paying attention, so she disconnected the phone and turned it off before shutting it in the glove compartment. It wouldn't be any use to her out here, wherever they were.

Ganondorf was driving so fast that it made Zelda dizzy to watch the landscape. She looked down at her hands, which were clenched into fists in her lap. She took a deep breath and stretched her fingers in an attempt to relax.

She spoke into the eerie silence. "Riju wanted to know why you call this place the Twilight."

"That's the only word I know," Ganondorf replied. "If there's a word in Hylian, I'm not aware of it."

"'Twilight' _is_ a Hylian word."

"You said Riju calls it 'the sunset roads.'"

"I'm not sure if that's a common expression," Zelda said. "Riju told me that not many people know about this sort of magic. Or rather, not many people outside of the royal family. Say, do you suppose…?"

"Someone would have informed me if I were a member of the royal family."

"You could always marry Riju and become a member of the royal family."

"I think not."

Zelda glanced at Ganondorf. The corner of his mouth twisted into a smirk. He seemed to be in a good mood.

"What is this place?" she ventured. "The Twilight, I mean."

"I can't answer that question."

"You can't, or you won't?"

Ganondorf's smile faded. "I would tell you if I knew."

"How did you know it existed in the first place, then?"

"It wasn't something I discovered. Using the Twilight to travel came to me naturally. I was surprised when I realized that other people don't know about it."

He paused, and in the gap between his words Zelda wondered just what Link might have seen after Ganondorf first appeared in Hyrule.

"It doesn't seem to be affecting you," he eventually continued.

"It isn't. Riju's charm must be working. I wonder why being in the Twilight hurts me but doesn't bother you."

"It's not pleasant for me to be here."

Zelda considered his response. 'It's not pleasant,' he said. That probably meant it hurt him just as much as it hurt her. Still, he didn't appear to be in pain.

"So how can you bear it?"

"I'm here of my own volition. I can leave the Twilight whenever I wish., so I tell myself that I can endure it for a minute more, and then just another minute more."

Zelda fell silent. She hadn't realized that she'd asked him to do something that would be painful to him when she suggested that they travel through the Twilight. She felt ashamed when she remembered that she'd assured Ganondorf that it was fine because _she_ wouldn't be in pain. Perhaps she should ask him to turn back. They had only been in the Twilight for a few minutes; surely they hadn't come that far. They could return to the city and enjoy the drive through the desert. Maybe they'd be able to watch the dawn break as they headed back east.

"I don't think I could bear it forever," Ganondorf said, interrupting Zelda's thoughts. There was an odd quality to his voice. It took Zelda a moment to realize that he sounded embarrassed, almost apologetic. She'd never heard him speak like this before, so she decided to remain silent and let him talk.

"The pain is bearable as long as it has a limit," he continued, "but I've had nightmares about being trapped here. There's no pain in my dreams, not as such, but the sense of not being able to leave is terrible. The Twilight reeks of magic. There's nothing natural about it. I've wondered who would create such a place, and why. You asked me how I came to know of the Twilight. I've asked myself the same question.

"If you were trapped here with this pain, with this coldness, with no sun or wind, it would change you. What made you human would be chipped away bit by bit until you were left with nothing more than the will to survive. And then, if you lost that, if you lost all sense of self, would this be easier to endure?"

Was he suggesting that he came from this place? But who would have trapped him here, and how? And for what purpose? Zelda couldn't be certain, but was Ganondorf implying that he had done it to himself?

"That's a bit grim," she said, unsure of how to respond.

Ganondorf smiled. "Is it? Only as grim as wanting to drive to the middle of the desert in the company of someone who may be a monster."

"Are you going to eat me?"

His grin widened. "Not here, no. Perhaps later."

Zelda felt herself blush and hoped that Ganondorf couldn't see the color on her face. It occurred to her that, despite everything, maybe he felt at home in the Twilight. Perhaps he had a perverse sense of appreciation for the pain, or maybe he enjoyed the danger and the possibility of losing himself.

It struck Zelda that it had never actually occurred to her that Ganondorf might attack her, at least not on purpose. What happened last night already seemed like a dream. If Link hadn't been there, and if the incident hadn't propelled her away from Hyrule, then she might have almost convinced herself that it hadn't happened at all. The actual dream that preceded her unpleasant awakening, however, was still clear in her mind. She could still feel the cobblestones of the castle courtyard under the thin soles of her sandals, and she could still see the sick orange glow of the terrible eyes in the darkness. The smell of the place, ozone and ash and the phantasmal reek of ammonia, still lingered in her mind. What could that possibly mean?

"The road ends here," Ganondorf said, and in the blink of an eye they were out of the Twilight.

Zelda was amazed to find that the road did indeed end, the rough pavement of its terminus buried in sand.

Ganondorf brought the car to a stop and then parked it in the middle of the two-lane road. He pointed through the windshield, and Zelda could see the faint glimmer of white marble in the clear moonlight. An uneven circle of ruins spiraled into the sandy basin spreading out below them.

"It will be easy enough to get down there, but it may be difficult to come back up," Ganondorf remarked.

Zelda didn't have any experience with hiking in the desert, but it was clear that climbing the steep sandy incline would indeed be difficult. Zelda stole a glance at Ganondorf's face. His eyes were shining. He would almost certainly go down by himself even if she told him that she wanted him to stay with her.

"I didn't come all the way out here just to look," Zelda said with a level of confidence she didn't feel.

Ganondorf nodded in acknowledgment and turned off the car. The night went silent, and then they were alone with the sand and the stars.


	33. Chapter 33

**In which Ganondorf and Zelda talk of the past in the ruins of the Arbiter's Grounds.**

* * *

"I've never seen anything like this," Zelda said.

The sky wheeled above them in a brilliant shower of constellations, bathing the ruins in a light that was just as otherworldly as the Twilight.

The ancient sandstone was so white that it seemed to glow, but it was eroded beyond recognition. The only point of interest, as far as Ganondorf could tell, was a large tablet that had fallen from its base. It lay tilted on its side at the edge of a half-buried plaza that must have once marked the approach to the structure. Although it would have been impossible to see the shallow letters in the glare of the sun, the clear starlight provided just enough contrast to make out the individual characters.

Ganondorf watched as Zelda ran her hand over a passage in Ancient Hylian.

"Can you read the writing?" she asked.

"Here are housed Hyrule's most dangerous criminals."

"But can you read it out loud?"

It took him a moment to understand what she was asking. She didn't want him to translate the writing, but simply to read it.

He did, and Zelda seemed impressed. "So that's what it sounded like," she muttered.

She moved her fingers to the parallel text in Classical Gerudo. "And here?"

"Abandon hope, all who enter."

"Could you read that out loud too?"

He did, and she gave a small nod.

"That was your accent when you first spoke to Riju," she said.

Ganondorf was amused by Zelda's choice of words. Of course that had been his "accent"; he had seen an echo of his features on Riju's face and spoken to her in his own language.

"So that's where I know the name from," Zelda continued, not bothering to explain herself. "This is the prison from the war. But that must have been hundreds of years ago, maybe more."

Her words meant nothing to him. Ganondorf had more practical matters to attend to than studying Hyrule's history, and he had even less reason to concern himself with Gerudo history. The abstract and philosophical held no interest for him. Where he came from was immaterial, and what had been taken from him was so great that he couldn't begin to comprehend it. He was incapable of feeling the loss of an identity that left no trace in his mind. Nevertheless, the insult of its theft was abhorrent. Although it might take his entire life – however short that might be – to figure out how he got here, he would find whoever did this to him and take his revenge.

How ironic, then, that the only person he could find to blame was Zelda, who could bring him to his knees at the slightest touch. _Go with me into the desert_, she said. And he did, may the goddesses help him. Without question.

Ganondorf passed through a broken arch and set out into the field of sand beyond it. The rhythm of walking across the dunes, the fluid shake and balance, came naturally to him. He made his way to the first free-standing landmark beyond the plaza, a staircase that had crumbled above its first landing. He climbed to the top, testing each step to confirm that it would hold his weight, and looked out over the monumental blocks of weathered stone in the desert basin. There wasn't much to see aboveground, but this edifice – whatever it was – must have been supported by a substantial foundation built into the bedrock. He wondered how much of it was still intact beneath the sand.

There was no wind, and the barren landscape was as still as the surface of the moon. Ganondorf could feel the bitter chill of the desert night even through the thick fabric of his clothing, and he hated it. He hated that Hyrule could be so blessedly warm and humid while his homeland was harsh and inhospitable. The pale silver of the moonlight on the sand was beautiful, but he resented it. There was no life here now, if there ever was. It was beyond him why Zelda wanted to come to this forsaken place.

She drew up behind him in the quiet way he'd come to appreciate, with not even the slightest sound of sand crunching under her boots. She padded up the stone steps like a cat and stood beside him, silent as she surveyed the spread of stones in the basin.

"It looks like there are two sets of ruins," she said. "There's one on the outside – that's the marble. It's laid out like a rectangle, or close enough to one. The ruins on the inside appear to be sandstone. It's difficult to see, but I noticed the inner circle from a distance when we parked on the hill."

Ganondorf looked closer. Zelda was right; the sandstone ruins had a radial symmetry that spiraled into the earth, confirming his initial impression that the older foundation was extremely deep. This must have been an impressive structure in its time. It was curious that such a site would be left to the mercy of the desert.

"I'm not used to walking on the sand. My ankles are a little sore. Can we take a break?"

She sat down without waiting for his answer. Ganondorf had no wish to linger here. He looked down at Zelda, wanting to protest, but he was struck by how slight the curve of her slim shoulders was against the rough chunks of the staircase masonry. The chill of the stone would freeze her in no time at all. He sat down next to her, and she leaned against him. Her body fit perfectly next to his. A heady flash of desire passed through him, but he resisted the urge to kiss her. Something about this place made him feel ill at ease.

"My family used to be the royal family of Hyrule," Zelda said without preamble.

"I know," Ganondorf replied. He'd wasted no time in uncovering everything there was to find about her, which wasn't a lot. It was odd that someone her age wouldn't have any sort of social media or online presence, but it made a certain amount of sense. Privacy is a privilege of the wealthy, after all.

"My family is associated with a lot of old legends about… About why we had the divine right to rule, I guess you'd say. People used to believe that it was my family's sacred duty to protect Hyrule from evil.

"Not that the royal family did it themselves. They had an army, of course, and it's said that a hero would always appear in times of dire need. The stories are never clear about where this hero came from, unfortunately. Was the hero a knight, or was he a farmhand? Was he a woodsman from the forest or a scion of a landed family? Regardless of where he came from, there was a different hero for every era of history. But not even this is clear, really. Some legends say that it was the same hero, and that he possessed the ability to travel through time, hidden until the moment arrived for him to wake and save Hyrule."

"I'm not from Hyrule."

"I didn't say you were the hero." Zelda shoved him playfully. Ganondorf grabbed her hand and pulled her closer. She leaned into him and rested her head against his shoulder.

"I only meant to say that there's a possibility that the technology to travel through time might actually exist," she continued. "Or the magic? Maybe something like the Twilight, except… I'm not sure. Manipulating time instead of space."

It was an interesting theory, but impractical. "I don't manipulate space by going into the Twilight," Ganondorf said. "I only create a temporary passage into a separate dimension that lies just underneath our own."

The process was as ingrained in his procedural memory as walking or speaking. Ganondorf lacked the precise language to explain how it worked, and he could only describe it through a system of analogies. "Even if magic could be used to create an entirely new dimension of space," he explained, choosing his words carefully, "getting there would be difficult. Entering the Twilight is nothing more than a matter of stepping slightly sideways, and you've seen how painful even that can be."

"But what if you could do the same thing with time? What if you could step sideways through time, like taking a small jump from one spoke of a wheel to another?"

Ganondorf considered the mechanics of Zelda's suggestion, but it was a pointless exercise. Even assuming that streams of time functioned like layers of space, passing into even a close and familiar moment of time would not be as simple as entering the Twilight, which existed unchanged regardless of any one person's interaction with it. Altering a stream of time through the act of entering it would be tantamount to recreating the entirety of the Twilight with each journey. Even as a variation of dimensional magic, such an endeavor would be far beyond the scope of even his own considerable ability.

"Magic is difficult is because it requires you to expend energy in order to change reality," he explained. "The greater the disparity between your intention and your current reality, the more difficult the spell will be to perform. The trick is to align your magic as closely to natural laws as you can. If your intended goal is too far from the preexisting natural order, the outlay of energy becomes results in mental exhaustion and acute physical pain. Being in the Twilight is unpleasant because it forces you to expend energy to survive in an unnatural state. I don't know enough about physics to understand how time would work as a tangible construct, but the amount of energy necessary to alter it would be massive. The pain would be inhuman."

"But what if that's what happened to you?" Zelda insisted. "What if Sheikah technology was implanted in you to help you perform this magic and survive outside the stream of time? And what if something went wrong? What if the magic was so powerful that it turned you into a monster?"

Ganondorf clenched his jaw to prevent himself from snapping at her. They had been skirting around the subject all night, but she'd finally come out and said it. In Zelda's mind, he hadn't temporarily changed his form; he fundamentally _was_ a monster.

He considered himself to be human, and he'd never had any reason to believe otherwise. He woke and ate and thought and spoke and slept like everyone else. In fact, he sometimes suspected that he understood other people better than most of them understood themselves. Something horrible had happened to him, obviously, but he always believed it to be something that someone else had done _to_ him, a chain of cause and effect that existed outside of himself.

And yet he was haunted by phantom memories of lives he could never have lived, and at times he was consumed by a nebulous anger that had no purpose or direction. What if his sense of self were nothing more than a persona, a mask hiding an unspeakable face? What if, underneath the thin sheet he had woven for himself from the threads of a borrowed civilization, he _were_ some gibbering, mindless _thing_ pulled out of an abyss even more terrible than the Twilight?

This possibility was the closest thing to a fear he possessed, yet Zelda spoke of it with no hesitation whatsoever. A compulsion to hold her down against the freezing stone and wring her lithe and perfect neck passed through him just as fiercely as his earlier desire to kiss her.

Ganondorf exhaled and watched the cloud of his breath disappear into the cold air.

"You said yourself that I'm no hero," he said, forcing himself to speak softly. "I can't imagine what motive I would have for working with the Sheikah. It would be illogical for them to leave me without a way of retaining some sort of message, either to myself or whoever might find me."

"Don't you remember anything?"

"I remember being trapped in darkness. I remember hearing your voice. I remember hating you."

"Maybe it wasn't my voice. Maybe it was the voice of a different Zelda."

"Another Zelda in the unbroken chain, you mean."

"Or it could have been me, I guess, just… a different incarnation."

Ganondorf could hear the icy bitterness in Zelda's words, and he recognized his own resentment of the possibility that he might have been someone else before he was himself – and that he must now answer for that person's actions. Transmigration of the soul was as fantastic and impossible as time travel, however, and none of this was anything more than speculation.

"You can't truly believe that you're a reincarnation of your ancestor," Ganondorf said, running his hand down Zelda's arm and pulling her closer.

Zelda shook her head against his shoulder. "I don't know what to believe anymore. But look at this."

She raised her right hand. The outline of her fingers shimmered with a faint golden glow for a moment before the three triangles of Hyrule's crest burst from her skin in a magnificent explosion of light.

"Does this mean anything to you?"

Ganondorf marveled that she could ask such a question. He could feel the power surging outward from her body. It broke over him in waves, and he could feel the pulse of her energy thrumming in his gut. The hair stood on the back of his neck. He opened his mouth to speak but could only sigh.

Zelda concealed her hand inside her cloak. Ganondorf stared at her, but she wouldn't meet his eyes.

By the gods, was she aware of her own ability? With that sort of magic she very well _could_ travel through time. She could completely reshape reality, or time itself. She could do anything she wished.

It was obscene that a power so great should exist in the world.

"Last night, when you attacked me, the light of the Triforce was the only thing that kept you at bay," Zelda said. "I didn't believe it while it was happening, and I'm not sure I believe it now. Now that I know more about magic, I think there must be some sort of rational explanation, but I'm frightened. I'm frightened of the Triforce. I'm frightened of myself as well. Can I tell you what happened to me when I was hospitalized as a child?"

Ganondorf was still reeling from the intensity of Zelda's magic. He couldn't speak, so he nodded.

"I heard voices when I was younger, and I had incredible dreams," she began. "I told you about the nightmares. But, before that, neither the voices nor the dreams were unpleasant. I remember actually _enjoying_ the strange abilities I had.

"You told me it took time for you to realize that other people don't know about the Twilight. It was the same for me. I was raised at home by myself, and it never occurred to me that other people didn't hear omniscient voices and have prophetic dreams. It's fair to say that I had an unconventional childhood. I had tutors, can you imagine? Like a little princess. But I don't mean to imply that I was unhappy. My parents loved me, or at least they seemed to, and I never wanted for anything. Our estate was like a castle to me, and I liked to imagine that I was living in a fairy tale.

"My father and mother were both on the older side. I don't want to dwell on the details, but they must have been trying to have a child for a long time. Or I could have been a happy accident, who's to say? However it happened, there I was, the baby of the family. My grandparents and aunts and uncles adored me. My cousins were all many years older than I was, and they doted on me."

"I don't think any of my cousins knew I had supernatural abilities, but they must have understood that I was precocious. Sometimes they would hide things from me or ask me questions whose answers I couldn't possibly have known. It was something of a game, I think. It was amusing for them to try to stump me, but it wasn't meanspirited. It was like how one of my cousins could play the piano beautifully, and another could draw caricatures. My talent was being able to go straight to the tin of candy someone's mother had hidden in the top drawer of the china cabinet in the sitting room, that sort of thing.

"To figure out what I needed to know, I would sit very still and listen for the voices to start speaking to me. It wasn't always the same voice, but it was always a woman. There was nothing mystical about it, at least not to me. These voices were always clear and direct, with no riddles. 'Will Agitha get a pony for her birthday,' I would ask, and one of the voices would say, 'Not for her birthday, no, but she'll receive one as a gift two months later after her mother settles a case and buys a cottage in the Tabantha highlands.' It didn't work every time, but none of us took this odd ability of mine seriously to begin with.

"I was rarely in the company of children my own age, but I was never lonely. I would see my cousins in my dreams, almost as if I were right there with them. This was all well and good when we were younger, but then a few of them started dating. I didn't understand what I was seeing, so I asked my mother to explain it to me. She wouldn't say anything except to warn me that I shouldn't mention these dreams to other people.

"I didn't understand my mother's refusal to talk to me, so I eventually went to my father and told him about the dreams and voices. Unlike my mother, he seemed interested, and I was flattered by the attention.

"Once I started to spend more time with my father, I began to see dreams about some of the people who were constantly visiting our house. I told my father about what I saw in these dreams, mainly because I wanted to have an excuse to talk to him. He seemed concerned at first, but he would always ask for details. He was at a critical point in his career, I think. He needed to get ahead somehow, and I guess he couldn't help himself.

"I would have done anything to please him, and I started taking naps during the day so that my dreams were fresher in my mind. That's when the nightmares started.

"I already told you about the nightmares. I don't remember them well, but they were like movies I was too young to watch, with monsters and fire and a lot of chasing and running. If I'd only had one or two nightmares like this, it would have been easy to call them anxiety dreams, but they were extremely realistic, and they wouldn't stop. I would wake up in the middle of the night, completely terrified and convinced that something horrible was going to happen.

"One night I screamed until my parents were finally summoned. I apparently overwhelmed them with the details of what I had seen in the dream, although I can't remember what I said. That's when they decided to take me to the hospital. After that, everything gets hazy."

Zelda took a deep breath. Her face was flushed, but her eyes were clear.

"I don't know if this was real or if I was just medicated," she continued, "but I had persistent visions of taking trips to the old castle. Sometimes I would see myself being strapped to a gurney and wheeled in, almost as if I were watching it happen to someone else, but sometimes I would just suddenly wake up in one of the lower levels of the castle with my father and his Sheikah aides beside me. We would take an elevator down to some sort of cave. It was so huge that it must have been a natural cavern, but there was writing on the walls. There were paved paths and small buildings, and… I can't be sure, but I think there was an underground river, maybe even a lake.

"The Sheikah would put me on my feet and force me to walk. I think they expected me to guide them, although I never figured out where we were going. I know it sounds like all of this had the potential to become a fun adventure, with a brave young girl leading her escort of armed guards through a forgotten maze of magical caves, but I was terrified. I was convinced that this was the place where my nightmares would come true, deep in the earth with no light to see what was down there with me. It was just like my dreams – I couldn't shake the feeling that I was trapped with something terrible. I cried and begged, but they kept forcing me to keep walking. Wherever I was supposed to take them, we never got there."

Ganondorf grit his teeth. Zelda's story wasn't easy to listen to, and he was furious on her behalf. Putting the flagrant child abuse aside, what she was saying didn't make sense. Magic wasn't a precise science, but what Zelda was describing shouldn't be possible. You couldn't use magic to see the future, for instance. If you wanted to make predictions, you may as well use a horoscope for all the good it would do. Magic could conceivably be used to alter someone's perception of reality, but chemical substances would be much more reliable and precise. Whatever voices Zelda heard must have been entirely of her own invention. It was fitting that Zelda said she had a childhood like a fairy-tale princess, because the sort of "magic" she described was utterly fantastic.

Regardless, Ganondorf believed her.

"I don't know whether I was awake or asleep," Zelda said in a sheepish tone, as if apologizing for the outlandish nature of her story. "I think I spent a lot of time sleeping when I was in the hospital. I don't remember being awake much at all.

"When they finally they released me, it was more than a year later. They told me something about having to induce a coma because of a brain injury, but I don't recall any surgery, and I don't have any scars. The only thing I had to show for all the months I spent in the hospital was a daily cocktail of pills. I was too young to question any of this. I guess I was happy that the nightmares finally stopped. Every so often I would hear voices again. I would tell one of my doctors, and they would adjust the dosage of my medication.

"It didn't occur to me until much later that perhaps the cave I saw in my visions was real.

"Every time I'd come across a picture of one of the Divine Beasts – or any other piece of ancient technology, for that matter – I would get a strange feeling. When I finally took myself to a museum during my first year of college and saw artifacts of ancient technology in person, I understood why. The cave I remember from my visions in the hospital was filled with ancient technology, and seeing the specific details again, like the interlocking swirls in that weird ceramic plating they have, brought everything back. Maybe the cave _was_ real, but there was no one I could ask about it.

"And I was always interested in the old legends of Hyrule," Zelda added softly. "What girl doesn't imagine being a princess and going on adventures with a hero at her side? But I never took any of it seriously. I hated that 'Princess Zelda' always seemed to be the first thing anyone said when they met me. When I realized that there might be more truth in the legends than what I had learned in school, I started to read about ancient technology, and also about the history of technology in Hyrule. I considered becoming a historian, but writing papers felt pointless to me. Science and math were the only subjects I had any aptitude for. Playing with numbers and recording concrete observations made sense in a way that politics and law never did.

"But why am I telling you this? It doesn't matter. I'm rambling, sorry."

"Say what you need to," Ganondorf assured her. Between the eeriness of the ruins and the lingering effects of the Twilight, Zelda's voice was having a strange effect on him. He regretted his decision not to take her to bed. He would rather hear Zelda's unsettling story while secure in the warmth of her body, not crouching on a pile of stones in the freezing desert night. If he interrupted her now, however, she might never be willing to speak of any of this again.

"I'm almost done, I promise," she said. "I told you about how I did some research into my medication, and how I found out that it doesn't technically exist. So I stopped taking it after I left my family. The nightmares came back, and even the voices to a certain extent. Sometimes I'll hear one when I least expect it, but I can't summon them when I want, not anymore. And then, only a few weeks after the dreams started again, there was you."

And now there was him, indeed. Zelda didn't put her assumption that he had come from her nightmares into words, but the implication was clear. Here he was, some sort of misbegotten thing without a past, a creature that could only remember its name – and hers, for reasons he couldn't begin to fathom.

Ganondorf resented Zelda even as he longed for her. He wanted to shove her down into the chasm of sand and leave her here for having been able to enjoy any sort of childhood at all, and at the same time he wanted to bury a blade between her father's ribs for what he'd put her through. He wanted to twist her unbound hair around his fist and ask her to try calling him a monster one more time even as he envisioned laying her down on under the starlight. Zelda had made herself vulnerable to him, and he wanted to punish her for reminding him of his own wretched vulnerability.

"Perhaps you are Princess Zelda," he said, knowing how much this would upset her. "Perhaps you are a goddess reborn, the keeper of the sacred Triforce. Put your power to use, then. Turn back time, if you think you can. These ruins called to you. See what you came to see."

Zelda's body stiffened. "Very well," she said.

She drew away from him and got to her feet. Ganondorf stood alongside her and watched as she raised her right arm. The golden triangles on the back of her hand began to shine, faintly at first but with a steadily increasing brilliance. Ganondorf was fascinated by the golden glow, but he forced himself to tear his eyes away from the Triforce.

The sand pooled within the broad hollow of the natural basin shimmered and sparkled, and for a moment the air smelled as sweet as the fresh grass in the yard of Zelda's apartment. From the flat plain of the desert hardtack rose a hill of rock stained the same dusty red as the canyon separating Lanayru from Hyrule. As Ganondorf watched, a grand temple materialized on the face of the hill. The exterior was lined with glass windows and a multitude of dark wooden doors. Water flowed through grates at the temple's foundation, clear streams collecting in shallow ponds ornamented with lilies. The mirage was as spectacular as a rainbow, and despite the distance he could see whatever he wished in minute detail. It was breathtaking.

As he watched, the marble bricks of a larger edifice began to climb around the perimeter of the temple. The newer structure was built in the classical Hylian style, with broad plazas and towering columns. The temple was demolished and rebuilt as a colosseum. As a prison, Zelda had said. Ganondorf sensed that there were no longer any deities here. The stones cried out with human misery. Above it all, crowning each hideous piece of statuary, was the Triforce.

It was no wonder the Arbiter's Grounds had been abandoned and forgotten. Who knew what horrors still lurked underground? A hero might dare to bring the mysteries of these ruins to light, but he was no hero, just a man disgusted by the pathetic history of this forsaken place.

"Is this what you wanted to see?" he asked, glancing at Zelda. Tears ran down her cheeks.

"I knew there was a great war," she said, "long ago, between Hyrule and the Gerudo. But why…?"

Zelda's breath caught as she struggled not to cry. She lowered her hand, and the mirage faded.

"Why would Riju tell me to take you here? It makes no sense," she muttered.

Ganondorf agreed; none of this made any sense. He had no understanding of the magic she had just performed. Was the vision she produced an accurate record of the past, or was it a scene from her nightmares? Did the Triforce have a will of its own, perhaps? Was Zelda nothing more than a vessel for a much larger power?

Ganondorf's contempt for Zelda vanished as quickly as it had arisen. He wanted to comfort her, but mere words would not suffice.

"These ruins are cursed," he said. "Let's bury them."

Zelda looked up at him, her eyes still wet. "What do you mean?"

The night air was cold on Ganondorf's face. He grasped it with his magic and turned it over in his mind. All it would take to create rain would be a sudden release of the heat stored within the earth. He shot the grip of his perception into the bedrock underneath his feet. There was still water here, lying in wait and full of potential. This place could become an oasis again, perhaps only briefly, but long enough for the patchy desert weeds to grow and crack the remaining slabs of stone. What the sun could not cleanse as it burned in the sky, the breath of life could reclaim as it surged from the earth. The power necessary to create an appropriate geologic shift would be substantial. How fortunate, then, to have that power standing beside him.

"Would you like to see trees grow in the desert?" he asked. "Lend me your power. Let me show you a miracle."

Ganondorf could see the curiosity in Zelda's eyes – and the desire.

"You want the Triforce."

"I want _you_."

And he did. Zelda's face was ghostly pale in the moonlight, but in the golden glow emanating from her hand he could easily believe that she was a goddess. A goddess of what, he couldn't be sure, but he would worship her in the only way he knew.

Ganondorf lowered his head and kissed her. The heat that rose between them was immediate. Ever so gently he created a connection between them, and she opened herself to him. He could feel the warmth gathering between her legs, just as he knew she could feel him hardening against her. He was struck by the realization that this pulse of life was exactly what he sought: the power to make this barren land fertile. He shared his wish with her and felt that she wanted it too, if for no other reason than that it was in her ability to make it happen.

Ganondorf allowed Zelda to break the kiss, and he held her as they faced the ruins. She lifted her hand once again. In an instant the night was filled with gold.

A violent wind swirled around them as lightning flashed through the sky. A storm was rising, and it would soon break.


	34. Chapter 34

**In which Zelda receives a warning from her mother.**

* * *

"Look at you. You've grown."

Zelda's mother stood but made no move to greet her. Urbosa squeezed Zelda's shoulder, but Zelda wasn't comforted. What could she possibly say in response? That it was good to see her mother again? That she had missed her? Such cheap pleasantries weren't worth the effort to lie.

"You seem well," Zelda said. Her mother did appear to be healthy, with not a strand of white in her dark hair. She looked younger than Zelda remembered.

"Life here suits me. My hosts have been kind."

Zelda's mother turned her gaze to Urbosa and smiled. It occurred to Zelda that Urbosa was much more than a "host" to her mother.

"I hear you've become a writer," Zelda said, struggling to be polite. She had no interest in what her mother published – translations, mostly – but asking about her work was more politic than demanding what she had spent the past twenty years doing with her life.

"It's something I always wanted to try," her mother replied calmly. "I never got the chance before I left."

_Having a child must have been a terrible inconvenience_, Zelda almost snapped, but she restrained herself. She had grown used to speaking her mind to Ganondorf, but it wouldn't do for her to lash out at everyone who irritated her. If he were here, how would he handle the situation? Probably with more charm than she could muster. Zelda wasn't feeling particularly clever at the moment, however, and she had no interest in ingratiating herself to her own mother.

"Urbosa says you wished to speak to me."

"I've wanted to talk with you for a long time. I doubt you'll believe me, but it's true. It's good to see your face again. Would you care to sit down and have some tea?"

Her mother extended the invitation with such grace that Zelda almost found herself accepting it, but she had nothing to say in response. She found her mother's hospitality offensive.

"Let the girl stand, if she wishes," Urbosa cut in, squeezing Zelda's shoulder again to demonstrate that she was only teasing. "I'd love some tea. Did you know," she said, turning to Zelda, "that Hilda makes the sweetest tea in the entire desert?"

It was odd for Zelda to hear her mother called by her pen name. As with all firstborn daughters in their family, she and her mother shared the same given name. Despite her distaste for this tradition, Zelda never thought of herself as anything other than "Zelda," which felt more natural than any of the nicknames her cousins and classmates had tried to bestow on her through the years. She wondered if she would ever feel comfortable going by another name.

"I'm sure Zelda has had her fill of Hyrulean tea. I recently bought a lovely sachet of voltfruit tea that I was saving for a special occasion."

"No, that's fine," Zelda said. She had no desire to prolong the conversation. "I know voltfruit flowers are difficult to come by."

"I'm afraid I only have tea leaves. The flowers are much too precious for a second-rate writer like myself to keep in the house. I'm curious – how would you know that such flowers exist, daughter of mine?"

Zelda shot a glance at Urbosa.

"I let her know you're studying magic, Zelda. You should have been the one to tell her, but I thought it would spare us all a great deal of awkwardness. Hilda has spent close to two decades in this country, but she still hasn't learned to say what she's thinking without circling around the subject."

That was just as well. Zelda only agreed to this meeting so that she would finally have a chance to obtain concrete information. She might as well get it over with.

"If we're not going to circle around the matter," she said to her mother, "then I won't waste your time by asking how much you know about magic. You must have known enough when I used it as a child. So tell me, mother of mine – what actually happened when I was hospitalized?"

"What happened?" her mother repeated. Her face was placid as she turned away from Zelda and walked into the open kitchen of her apartment, a richly appointed set of rooms on the top floor of a detached building in the northeast corner of the palace complex. "I'm not sure how much you remember, but it was worse than you can possibly imagine. You came close to death on multiple occasions, and not always by accident. I believe your father's men wanted to dissect you at some point."

"How considerate of you to stop them."

"I couldn't have stopped them if I tried. Where do you think you got your magic from? I was under close observation. One wrong move would have landed me in an institution for the rest of my life. Your nightmares were no secret to anyone in the household, and it would have been the most natural thing in the world to blame your mother for causing them. After all, who's to say that I wasn't secretly abusing you? I could easily have suffered a nervous breakdown, if that's what the Sheikah wanted people to believe. It's such a shame, there was always something a bit off about her, I hear it runs in their family – is that sort of gossip so difficult to imagine?"

Zelda saw her mother's point with perfect clarity, but this did nothing to ameliorate her resentment at being left behind.

"You were lucky to escape, then," Zelda said, careful to maintain a neutral expression.

"I told your father I would leave if he insisted on continuing to subject you to Sheikah experiments, and I meant it," her mother replied as she set a kettle of water over a flame. "He refused to see reason, so I left, just as I said I would. I assumed this would shock him into reconsidering his priorities."

"Forgive me for asking, but why did you think that would work?"

"He wouldn't listen to anything I said, and actions speak louder than words. Your father managed to build a network of political connections far more powerful than mine, and my options were more limited with each passing day. More than anything, I thought he loved me. It turned out that he only loved Hyrule."

Zelda's mother paused as she spooned loose tea into a gleaming steel strainer. "That came out as more dramatic than I expected, but the point still stands. When I tried to return to Hyrule with Urbosa, we were detained at the border. I was arrested, and it was only through the immediate intervention of Urbosa's guards that I was able to make it out alive."

Zelda frowned. "Urbosa's guards?"

"There's no need to hide the truth," Urbosa said gently. "There were no guards. We were attacked, and I was forced to kill several Hylian soldiers. There was no time to negotiate. If we waited until the Sheikah arrived, we wouldn't have stood a chance. I hadn't realized how serious the situation was until police met us at the border. They drew their weapons and wrestled your mother into handcuffs as soon as we got out of the car."

"But you've been to Hyrule since then," Zelda objected. "How could that be possible if such a skirmish occurred? If Hylian soldiers attacked you, it would have been an international crisis. To cover up something like that…" Zelda stopped speaking as the implications of her words became clear.

"The Sheikah would have had to silence everyone involved," Urbosa confirmed. "Except myself and your mother. They couldn't touch us without acknowledging that we had been attacked."

"I see you're beginning to understand why I haven't been able to contact you," Zelda's mother continued. "We were afraid that even a letter from me would have resulted in unnecessary tension. It's no secret that the relationship between Hyrule and Lanayru has been strained for some time."

"Through no fault of mine," Urbosa muttered. Zelda was alarmed by the uncharacteristic rancor in her voice. A scowl cut across Urbosa's face, and her eyes were shadowed. Her resemblance to Ganondorf was uncanny.

Zelda's mother nodded. "To give your father credit, he's been able to maintain peace for far longer than anyone expected. You'll have to believe me when I say that he's not a bad man, just nearsighted. For years I believed that he drove me out of Hyrule to protect me. That was one of the main reasons why I felt I had to distance myself from you, after all – to keep you safe. I waited for him to send word to me, but no message ever came. I couldn't risk contacting you. The only way I could hope to reach either of you was through my writing, but I assume you weren't interested. As for your father, I sometimes used to wonder if he reads at all."

It was true that Zelda didn't have the slightest interest in reading anything her mother wrote, but her insult regarding her father was completely unfounded; he read more than anyone she'd ever met. "Why would you say that?" she demanded. "And if you thought he was illiterate and 'nearsighted,' why did you marry him in the first place? The way I understand it, his family was practically middle class. What did you have to gain from marrying him?"

Zelda's mother removed the kettle from the flame before it boiled and poured hot water over the strainer into a glass teapot. It was the same type that Zelda used herself.

"He was different when he was younger," her mother replied. "I knew he would change as he rose higher in public service, but I thought he would become more true to himself, more like the man I was convinced he was. Instead, he became someone else entirely – a person who would sacrifice his daughter for the benefit of his position. That was probably who he was all along. He wouldn't have chosen to marry me and become a politician otherwise, not when he had so many other opportunities. Let me give you some advice – never fall in love with the person you hope someone will become."

Zelda's mind was still reeling from what she had just learned about the attempt on Urbosa's life, and the last thing she needed was relationship advice from a mother she hadn't seen in two decades.

"I'll keep that in mind, thank you," she said tersely. "There are many things I'd like to ask you, but I'll settle for one last question, if you don't mind."

"Ask whatever you like." Zelda's mother handed a cup of tea to Urbosa, who joined her in the kitchen.

"The 'Legend of Zelda.' Any of them, it doesn't matter which one. Is it real?"

Zelda's mother didn't hesitate to answer. "It's quite real. None of the legends are 'accurate,' precisely, at least not in historical terms. Every country tells these legends differently, and none of the accounts add up. No one can say what may have actually happened in the past. The Sheikah know more than they would ever let on, but not even they're aware of the whole truth. I'm not sure anyone is. That doesn't mean the events described in the legends didn't happen, or that the old magic isn't real. I'm sure you know this yourself by this point. If I had to guess, I might say that you know better than anyone."

"But I'm not the only person able to use magic, even in Hyrule," Zelda countered. "And I'm not the only Zelda to be born to our family, obviously. Even if the legends – or something _like_ the legends – actually happened, that doesn't mean that I'm 'fated' to do anything."

Zelda's mother smiled, and for the first time she looked her age. "I told you never to fall in love with the person you think someone might become," she said. "That includes yourself. If you can only accept the best version of the person you hope you'll become in a crisis, you'll only break your own heart."

Zelda's mother laughed and took a sip of tea. "Sweet Nayru, that's a second overly dramatic thing I've said in the same conversation. Let this be a lesson to you – don't start drinking until sundown, even here in the desert. The days do seem to last forever here, don't they? What I meant is that I hope you'll keep an open mind. Some of the old legends are extremely interesting, especially the ones the Gerudo tell. You may want to ask that 'colleague' of yours where he got his name, for instance."

Where _did_ he get his name, this demon of a man who came from a place she couldn't begin to imagine? The question was worth asking, but it felt less important now than it had once seemed. As Ganondorf held her in the darkness of the ancient desert ruins and used the power of the Triforce to bring the earth and sky together, his mind was open to her, and what she'd seen inside him was nothing more and nothing less than undiluted joy at the sensation of the warm rain that fell on his face.

Zelda forced herself to relax her clenched fists. She had heard enough. It was time to leave.


	35. Chapter 35

**In which Riju conspires with a powerful collaborator.**

* * *

Riju had a lot to catch up on with Zelda, including this business with the Sheikah Slate. She didn't know much about ancient technology or how it worked, but she was impressed by the photos Sidon and his friend Link sent her. Having found themselves in possession of a hypermagical reality-altering device, they'd used it to go swimming and rock climbing. Good for them. Riju was happy that Sidon had found someone his speed.

Meanwhile, Urbosa finally succeeded in getting Zelda to talk with her mother. Having to tiptoe around the topic of Zelda's mother had always been awkward, and Riju was relieved that her friend was willing to make peace with the only halfway normal member of her family. Taking the first step couldn't have been easy, and Zelda was visibly shaken after the conversation. She didn't cry, thank Hylia, but the first thing she did after the meeting was to ask for a drink. Riju dutifully provided Zelda with watered-down shots as they talked it over. Yes, it was all true, and yes, it was all very fucked up. Yes, the Sheikah were scary, and yes, Urbosa was even scarier.

Riju was more than willing to use Zelda's company as an excuse to drink. As much as she'd once wanted to live in Hyrule, she missed the desert every day she'd spent there. Now that she was back, she hated it. She complained about everything from her two ridiculous mothers to the new skyscraper the pair of them were planning on building to her own frustration with being a public figure. Zelda listened as attentively as she always had, but the questions she asked were sharper than they used to be. If Riju wasn't mistaken, Zelda might be on the verge of entering public life herself. Which was good. It was about time.

Zelda was also keen to talk about magic. She was exactly like someone who'd just discovered _voe_ for the first time. _Yes_, Riju kept telling Zelda, _everyone does magic, it's not a big deal_. She was aware of the taboo against magic in Hyrule, but she vaguely assumed the Hylians were like Gorons – it's not that they _couldn't_ use magic, but that they _preferred_ not to. After all, most Rito didn't fly, and most Zora wouldn't be caught dead walking around without the clothing they didn't need. Meanwhile, Zelda acted as though magic were much grander and more impressive than it actually was. No wonder she was so taken with Ganondorf, who was so inhumanly talented that he could make even a mundane matter like magic seem as though it were an art.

Riju was quite taken with Ganondorf herself. He got along well with the older _vai_, who were charmed by his polite and precise way of talking, and he was undeniably easy on the eyes. Not that his attractiveness mattered to her. Riju went through periods when she was interested in men, but what she found intriguing about Ganondorf wasn't his pretty face.

Ganondorf discretely made himself scarce while Riju spent time with Zelda. His Gerudo had gotten remarkably better in two days, as had his sense of fashion, but Riju still found it easier to speak with him in Hylian.

At the moment, Zelda was waiting for a call from a Sheikah scientist whose name Riju had written down but couldn't remember off the top of her head. Priya, maybe? She added it to her list of things to investigate once she returned to Hyrule. In the meantime, this was as good of an opportunity as any for her to come to an understanding with Ganondorf. The Gerudo had long memories, and there was something she was dying to show him.

"You've been out and about," Riju remarked as she led Ganondorf through the maze of archives and storage rooms carved into the bedrock underneath the palace complex. "What do you think of our city?"

"Everyone has been welcoming, and I can't remember the last time I ate this well. I have no complaints."

"How about the climate? Are you adjusting?"

"The days are long, and there's never a cloud in the sky."

What a clever tongue this _voe_ had. "That's a nice way to put it. Are you sure you're not a politician?"

"There are better ways to make money."

"You might be surprised."

"I'm always willing to be surprised."

Riju laughed. "Do you know how my family makes money?"

"Illuminate me."

"Holding companies. We can't legally own corporations or real estate, but there's nothing preventing us from managing the organizations that handle stocks and dividends. We're a constitutional monarchy, and everything we do is above ground, you might say."

"Your city does have a lovely skyline."

Riju nodded. Unlike Hyrule, where every building was marked by a neon logo, her family was careful to keep its name off its assets. "I see you understand the business we're in, then," she said. "Every once in a while, someone in Hyrule will make a big deal about the value of free markets. They're usually selling something."

"Hyrule has its fair share of holding companies."

"It does, doesn't it? I don't know if Zelda told you, but I have a degree in international law. I know better than most people that every legal code has loopholes. I want you to understand that I'm not trashing my friend, but Zelda's interest in science has always amused me, given the resources she has."

"She takes her work seriously."

"I take my friend seriously. Otherwise, I might never have learned what an interesting person you are."

"I'm flattered by your interest."

Ganondorf flashed his teeth in a wide smile. He knew where this conversation was going, and he didn't seem to be bothered in the slightest. Zelda had described Ganondorf as guarded, but that wasn't Riju's impression of him at all. He had such an air of easy self-confidence that it was hard to imagine him feeling threatened by anyone. He certainly wasn't behaving defensively toward her. He and she were co-conspirators, his grin seemed to say. As far as Riju was concerned, this was accurate. She couldn't hurt him even if she wanted to, and he had yet to give her a reason to want to. Zelda introduced him as an investor. As it turned out, that wasn't far from the truth. Why not give him a worthy cause to invest in?

"It's not flattery, let me assure you. You're quite interesting. I'm fascinated by the fact that you don't exist, at least not on paper. Or, I guess should say, you exist _only_ on paper. You have a phone number, a bank account, and precious little else. It does make me wonder where you came from."

"Not everyone has a lineage as illustrious as your own."

"If you were from a small settlement out in the desert, I suppose it would make sense for your mother to take you to Hyrule, or for you to go there yourself. I hear _voe_ aren't treated well in traditional families."

A shadow crossed Ganondorf's face. "One could say that."

"Don't let me tell your story for you."

"By all means, please continue. I'm intrigued."

"So I started thinking, if I were a refugee who came from nothing and wanted to make a place for myself in the world, what would I do? The service sector is out of the question. Most employers in Hyrule run background checks, especially for menial positions. Isn't that a charming custom? I also wouldn't be able to apply to most white-collar jobs, not without an educational background. If I were smart, I'd look for a place where a sharp suit and my natural charisma would be all the credentials I needed. In an industry where ambition is rewarded, preferably. The finance sector, perhaps."

"You make walking into an investment firm sound easy. It would be quite a feat if you could pull it off."

The _voe_ was right; it would be difficult – although perhaps not so difficult in Hyrule, where Gerudo men sometimes seemed to be even more highly prized than they were in Lanayru.

"I'm not saying I could actually pull it off," Riju replied. "I'm no good with numbers. And I think the sort of people who run investment firms would probably kick you out into the street if you weren't able to perform at their level. You'd have to produce incredible results, and I assume you'd have to do it in no time flat."

"That would be a tall order."

Riju nodded. "Absolutely. So what I would do, especially if I were working in Hyrule, would be to give myself an advantage. Not anything unfair, of course, and certainly not anything illegal, but just enough to get a foot in the door. My computer skills are pretty basic, but if I _could_ program, it's conceivable that I _might_ be able to create a network of programs that could engage in high-frequency trading. I don't have any special talent for magic, but I do have a small affinity for manipulating electric currents. I'm given to understand that it runs in the family. Maybe, if I could figure out a way to enchant my hardware so that it runs _slightly_ more efficiently, I might be able to gain an edge over the competition."

"You certainly could, but the right set of algorithms would be just as effective."

"My mothers handle the family finances, so I don't know much about securities. You'll have to forgive my ignorance, but I hear that, when it comes to high-frequency trading, it's not so much the algorithms that matter as the disruption of the market. But you're the expert."

"Market disruption is a risky strategy. I wouldn't recommend it. That sort of exchange would require careful management. You couldn't simply set up a program, sit back, and make money."

"I guess you're right, but it probably doesn't hurt to have big numbers to use as variables to plug into your equations. If you could access a source of capital that the other traders at your firm couldn't touch, that might help. And if – just hypothetically speaking, of course – I had the balls to create an identity from scratch using publicly available records, I might not shy away from taking advantage of the dividends of certain accounts as they transition from one holder to another. When one of my firm's clients dies, or maybe declares bankruptcy. For example."

Ganondorf's grin widened. "You most certainly could do that. Someone should make that sort of thing illegal. It's a shame that no one has."

"It's not my country, so I can't judge. Thanks for indulging in my flight of fancy."

"It's quite a tale. I wonder how many other people that line of speculation would occur to."

"Just me. For the time being, at least. But it's a wild story, no? I've been thinking I might share it with Zelda."

"Between us, Riju, I don't think Zelda would be the most receptive audience. Stories like that don't seem to interest her at all."

Riju felt a twinge of annoyance. Of course Zelda knew how Ganondorf made his money. He probably told her himself. He'd more than likely guessed – correctly – that Zelda was already familiar with her own family's finances and wouldn't be bothered by whatever sort of dubiously legal monkey business he was engaged in. Given the immense political corruption Zelda's relatives took for granted as a family tradition, what Ganondorf was doing probably didn't trouble her at all. And he knew it, the clever bastard.

Well, just so long as they were all on the same page.

"I don't know if Zelda told you, but she recently spoke with her mother."

Ganondorf winced. "That can't have gone well."

"It didn't. She's probably going to cut her visit short. She didn't say anything to me, but that's how she makes decisions. I'm sure you've noticed that about her. I assume you'll accompany her back to Hyrule."

"That's up to her."

Riju rolled her eyes. "_Of course_ it's up to her, and _she'll_ say it's up to you. Can you at least _offer_ to drive her back? How long have you two been dating, anyway?"

"How long have we been walking? Surely this basement can't go any deeper."

"Fine, change the subject. Good timing, though. We took the scenic route, but we're here."

Riju placed her hand against a dragonfly crest carved into the wall. She visualized a doorway, just as she had been taught, and the stones slid open to form a passage into one of the many rooms of the royal family's archives. There were no glowing glyphs on the walls or any other sort of magical ornamentation to indicate that this section was different than any of the others. It wasn't even hidden that well, as the outline of the doorway was still visible on the wall even when it wasn't open.

This room contained some of the most valuable documents in the archives, however, as well as some of the most disturbing. Many of the manuscripts weren't from Lanayru at all, but from Hyrule and its outlying territories. There were stone tablets from the Gorons and the Zora, tapestries from the Rito, wood carvings from the Koroks, and scrolls of mulberry paper from the Sheikah, not to mention thick books with soft vellum pages from the ruins of the former site of Hyrule Castle. What was preserved in this dark and silent room was the history of Calamity Ganon.

Riju had first come here with Rotana, the palace archivist, in the company of Urbosa. Her mothers were far too involved in managing the queendom's economy to serve as public figures, so it was decided that Riju would inherit the throne directly. This was mostly a matter of diplomatic relations, which Riju had been studying in one way or another for her entire life. In order to fully understand the responsibilities of her position, Urbosa told her, there was something else she needed to know.

She could not have been more surprised by what this entailed if Rotana had revealed that aliens were real.

"What most people don't know about Ganon is that he was a real person," Riju explained. "One of the rare Gerudo _voe_, in fact. He was named Ganondorf, and he came from an era long before anyone except us thought to write down their history. There were only a few hundred Gerudo living here at the time, and most of their settlements were concentrated on the far eastern edge of the desert, right at the mouth of the canyon where the main highway is now. The Hylians believed that the Gerudo were a loosely federated band of thieves. And who knows? They very well could have been, although that's obviously not how they described themselves in the documents they left behind.

"Whatever the case may have been, there was war after war after war. Hyrule was an absolute monarchy at the time, and its kings apparently weren't interested in negotiating with anyone who wasn't male. It was therefore a Gerudo custom to appoint a _voe_ as a 'king' for the purpose of maintaining relations with Hyrule. Ganondorf clearly isn't a Gerudo name, so this could have been what the Hylians called him."

Riju shot a glance at Ganondorf. "Is this ringing any bells for you? Bringing back any memories?"

"Zelda raised the possibility that I may have come from another era, but the likelihood seems dubious at best," Ganondorf responded, his voice as dry as the air in the sealed room.

Of course it was dubious. The very notion was ridiculous, but it didn't hurt to ask.

"You could be a reincarnation," Riju suggested.

"I'm not a reincarnation." Ganondorf shrugged. "Or perhaps I am. If such a thing were possible, any of us could be a reincarnation." He turned away from her and began to study the labels affixed to the drawers of a cabinet carved from Faron sandalwood. The cabinet must have been hundreds of years old, and the scrolls it contained were much older.

"Can I tell you something funny? I used to think that I was a reincarnation of Ganondorf," Riju said as she walked across the room and opened the wide drawer of a layered shelf built into the sandstone wall.

"What provoked that idea?"

"I hated this place," Riju answered. She considered putting on a pair of archival gloves before handling the text she intended to remove, but she decided that she didn't particularly care about its condition or preservation. "I hated being a princess, and I hated the palace. All I wanted was to go sand seal surfing all day every day, but sometimes I even hated the desert itself. There were a lot of sandstorms when I was younger. The thunder and lightning would last for days, but the sky could never bring itself to actually rain. Some of Urbosa's older advisors took it as an omen of who knows what sort of terrible tidings, but I just thought it was awful and boring to have to stay inside all the time. I begged and begged and begged my mothers to send me to school in Hyrule. It seems childish now, but at the time I had vivid fantasies about what Hyrule was like. Urbosa eventually convinced my mothers to let me go, but not before she brought me down here."

Riju placed the book she'd retrieved on a reading table and snapped her fingers to turn on the light overhead. "'Be careful what you wish for' is what she wanted to say to me, I think. There's something of a tradition of Gerudo rulers becoming a bit too infatuated with Hyrule. Their country seems small and weak, but there's a reason it's been able to remain independent. Ganondorf wanted Hyrule, and look what happened to him."

She found the section of the codex she was looking for and gestured Ganondorf over. He stood beside her and watched as she flipped through the pages of the illuminated manuscript, moving from one illustration to another: A cloaked man with red hair shining in the desert sun, now in heavy armor on a charging destrier, a castle in flames, a volcano erupting, a river freezing, an empty lake, a pale hand rising from a dry well, desiccated corpses shambling through a deserted town.

"Hyrule has its own magic," Riju said, trusting that Ganondorf could follow the story without needing its moral to be spelled out. "No matter how lazy or terrible or incompetent its kings are, no matter how old or infirm for insane, it's still better than the alternative than allowing foreign blood to mix with the royal family. The Hylian legends say the old kingdom was cursed, but that curse worked out well for them, if you ask me. Or at least some of them, the ones with enough power and authority to decide which legends would end up in books like this."

Riju skipped forward to another section of the codex and allowed the pages to open naturally to an illustration that was heavy with gold leaf. A young woman with a cruel face stood surrounded by beams of light, holding a flawless and unstained sword in one hand and a shining triangle in the other.

"You've walked the sunset roads," Riju continued. "I think the Hylian word 'Twilight' is a much better name for that place, don't you? It's a world neither living nor dead, a place where only shadows can walk without pain. I won't deny that it's convenient, but I can't help but be a little afraid of whoever created it."

She skipped to the end of the volume to show the final illustration: A Gerudo man with an upturned face, his chest pierced by a sword with an elaborate hilt that resembled a pair of spread wings. There was no blood, but the man's face was twisted in a rictus of agony.

"Personally, I would hate to be the person Hyrule decided was the bearer of its curse."

Riju allowed the cover of the codex to fall shut. She'd read a translation of the manuscript, and she was familiar with the story. It ended here. Whatever happened after the "demon" was killed apparently wasn't important to whoever compiled these legends.

Ganondorf cleared his throat. "What made you decide you weren't a reincarnation after all?"

"Who knows?" Riju tapped the wooden cover with her fingers. How had he put it? "If such a thing were possible, any of us could be a reincarnation."

"So the possibility still stands," he replied with a smirk.

"I don't think so. People keep telling me that it's important to respect our heritage, but this is all so _stupid_. If something happened in the past, why couldn't we just record the facts of its history? Why does everything have to come down to us through so many levels of myth and hearsay? That's why I told Zelda to go to the ruins of the Arbiter's Grounds, by the way. It's an important historical site, but almost no one knows about it. We treat it as if it doesn't exist. I'll occasionally read something on the internet, someone saying that it's dangerous because it's structurally unsound, or that it's in the middle of a molduga wildlife preserve, or that it's haunted, or whatever. I suspect that it's probably just bad PR for Hyrule. You went there with Zelda, didn't you? What did you think?"

"What I think isn't important. You should see the ruins for yourself."

"Fine, be that way." Riju clicked her tongue. "Speaking of which, I got a report that there was a freak rainstorm out that way the other night. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"I couldn't say. You might want to ask Zelda."

Riju chuckled. "Okay, I get it. I'll let her speak for herself, then. The two of us have been talking a lot these past few days, you know. About legends and magic. And destiny, once we've had enough to drink. You do know she likes to drink, right?"

Ganondorf made a noise that wasn't quite a laugh. "I'm aware of that, yes," he answered.

"So anyway," Riju continued, "Zelda has about as much patience for legends as she does for finance fraud. Less, probably. Her interest in ancient technology is… Not academic, although there's an element of that, but let's say… Practical. Pragmatic, even. Don't let anyone tell you that Zelda isn't ambitious. She wants to figure out how ancient technology works so that she can use it."

"She mentioned that to me," Ganondorf muttered absentmindedly. He'd started to flip through the codex, and Riju noticed his eyes darting back and forth as he scanned the lines of the flowing cursive script. She watched him for a few moments. He could probably read the language of the handwritten text, she decided, but it didn't seem to be affecting him. If he was experiencing any sudden revelations, he was hiding it well.

Whatever. That wasn't why she'd brought him here.

"I'm also interested in ancient technology, but for different reasons," Riju said. "Do you mind if I put that book back in storage?"

"Not at all." Ganondorf gently closed the codex and handed it to her.

"I wanted you to understand why no one from Lanayru has tried to go to Hyrule to study ancient technology, or why we haven't offered to buy bits and pieces of it from collectors. I'm sure you can imagine why it would be of interest to us, but 'let Hyrule keep its secrets' has been a guiding principle of my family for generations. And I want you to understand that Zelda is my friend. I wouldn't change that for the world. But if _she's_ interested in ancient technology, and if it's _her_ decision to see if she can get it to work again, then I'd like to help her. I think it might be a good investment opportunity, let's say."

"I assume you're looking for a business partner," Ganondorf said. Now that she had his full attention again, its weight was almost palpable. Riju was beginning to get what Zelda meant when she called him 'intense.' So much the better.

"I might be doing just that, but I wouldn't want to work with just anyone. I'd need to find someone who was aware of the risks of this sort of venture."

"And someone who wouldn't take advantage of your friend."

"Let me be real with you, Ganondorf. I don't mean any disrespect, but I don't think you're capable of taking advantage of Zelda." The idea was laughable. If she were reading their relationship correctly, Ganondorf would kneel at Zelda's feet if she asked him to, but that was none of her concern.

"I'm worried about her, though," Riju continued. "The Sheikah are one dangerous group of assholes, and they're not stupid. They probably had a good reason for keeping this technology inoperative, which makes it all the more suspicious that they've enlisted Zelda to help them reactivate it."

She sighed as she traced the outstretched wings of the Hylian royal crest emblazoned on the cover of the codex. "Like I said earlier, I wish people had been clear about what happened in the past instead of coming up with all of these idiotic legends. Let me tell you, I used to have fantasies about what would happen if there were a fire down here in the archives. It's not as if something like that could ever happen, not with of all of the safety and preservation systems we have in place. But what if it did? Would any of this old paper be worth saving?"

Ganondorf met her eyes. "I would let it burn."

A slow smile spread across Riju's face. That was _exactly_ what she wanted to hear.


	36. Chapter 36

**In which Zelda receives a tour of the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab.**

* * *

"The thing that most people don't realize about technology," Purah said, "is that it doesn't have a mind of its own. Even the most sophisticated piece of machinery only does what it's been programmed to do."

Zelda watched as Purah placed a device that resembled the Sheikah Slate onto the dock of a large piece of ancient technology that she called a "furnace." It was a squat chunk of smooth dark stone covered with the grainy ceramic spirals characteristic of ancient tech. It resembled nothing so much as an altar.

"There's no point in thinking of any of this as 'magical.' Ancient technology was designed by people who weren't any more or less intelligent than ourselves. It stands to reason that it operates according to a standard set of principles, even if we haven't quite figured out what they are yet. Did that handsome friend of yours have any luck with the Sheikah Slate?"

_Link_, Zelda reminded herself. _She's talking about Link._

She cleared her throat. "He did, actually. He was able to activate the device by touching its screen. He says that there are five apps – "

"Runes," Purah interrupted her. "The functions of the Sheikah Slate are called 'runes.'"

"Very well, then. Runes. Link found that there are five runes. The device contains a simple camera, as well as four runes that allow the user to manipulate physical space through seemingly magical means."

"Thaumaturgical means."

"Thaumaturgical means, right." The distinction between 'thaumaturgy' and 'magic' still wasn't clear to Zelda. Purah used the word "thaumaturgy" to refer to technology-assisted magic, but Impa had called the simple light spell she practiced in her apartment "thaumaturgy" as well. Perhaps the Sheikah employed the term to designate a scientific system of classification, or it could be that they wanted to avoid the imprecise and mystical connotations of the word "magic." She would have to ask for clarification later.

Zelda cleared her throat again. "One rune generates circular orbs that can be used to create explosions, while another instantly transforms free-standing water into uniform blocks of ice. One of the runes can be used to manipulate magnetic fields. The remaining rune manipulates gravitational fields, causing the targeted object to appear temporarily frozen in time. Despite its extraordinary powers, Link has reported that the range of the device is limited to no more than five or six yards."

Purah nodded. "We have a body of data concerning the remote bombs and the stasis rune, but what we know about the cryonis and magnesis runes is mostly hearsay. Do you think you could convince your friend to come to the lab to give a demonstration?"

"I'll certainly try," Zelda promised. She hadn't had an opportunity to experiment with the Sheikah Slate before giving it to Link, and she wanted to see what it could do with her own eyes. It would be ideal to observe it being tested in laboratory conditions.

"Did Link figure out how to access the secondary functions? The satellite map and the photo notations?"

"You'll have to ask him yourself. I haven't seen him since I transferred possession of the device."

"It's funny, isn't it? I've read that it was possible for ancient tech to be configured to specific users, but I thought, in this case, the user would be you. We can't confirm its provenance, but the Sheikah Slate reportedly belonged to the princess who survived the Calamity."

"I couldn't make heads or tails of it," Zelda admitted. "I couldn't even get the screen to activate. As soon as Link touched it, it was like flicking on a switch. I'm a little jealous that it came so naturally to him."

"You're not the only one who's jealous. I've been fiddling with that thing for years." Purah waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "Ah, well. Better late than never. I hope you told that child to keep it off social media."

"He's worked for the Sheikah longer than I have. I'm sure he knows the protocol."

"I'm sure he does," Purah said with a smirk. "My little sister didn't give me the full story, but she told me about how Link's resignation came out of nowhere. I don't suppose he enjoyed spying on you for your father to begin with, and I suspect someone finally gave him an ultimatum: your job or your Skyloft profile. I think he made the right choice, but no one asked me."

Purah made a quick series of taps on the screen of the tablet attached to the ancient furnace. She appeared to be entering a passcode.

"I'd like to set up a Skyloft profile myself," Purah continued. "You're never too old to try new things, that's my philosophy. But I also say, if you're going to do something, you might as well do it right. There's no point in being on Skyloft if I'm not going to be popular. I don't think I'll have any trouble in that department, thankfully. Who wouldn't want to follow the adventures of a beautiful and charming researcher as she uncovers the secrets of these gorgeous machines?"

Purah gracefully shifted her weight and stood on one foot while flashing a "v" sign with her fingers in front of her canary red glasses. She winked at Zelda, who couldn't help grinning in response.

"That goes for you as well," Purah added. "We should set up profiles together, darling. We'll be internet famous. Now watch, let me show you something you'll love."

She pointed to a separate piece of ancient tech positioned above the furnace that hung over the tablet dock like a stalactite. "That lovely fellow up there is called a guidance stone. It's powered by the energy stored in the furnace, and it serves as something like the machine's hard drive. What you're about to witness is a data transfer. I get chills every time I see it."

As if on cue, a shining drop of bright cyanic light gathered at the tip of the guidance stone and fell onto the screen of Purah's tablet. The way it mimicked water was so uncanny that Zelda almost expected there to be a splash.

The tablet chirped in acknowledgment of a successful transfer. Purah removed it from the dock and handed it to Zelda, who watched as a pictograph of a flower materialized on the screen. The quality was slightly grainy, but the image appeared to be a stalk of blue nightshade glowing faintly in the shadow of an old oak tree.

"What we get with each transfer is a bit random, but we're slowly working out an interface," Purah explained. "The tablet you're holding is a facsimile that we've created based on the notes of researchers working in the aftermath of the Calamity. It would be supremely useful if we could access the original Sheikah Slate. If it only works for certain users, it would be convenient to know who they are and how the device recognizes them. As I said earlier, there must be some sort of programming."

Zelda swiped through the pictographs stored on the tablet. As far as she could tell, they all depicted flowers, mushrooms, and other flora at close range. Many of the shots were quite good.

"I wasn't joking about making this research public," Purah said as she stroked the ancient furnace fondly with the palm of her hand. "Most of what we're doing is harmless, and it would be nice to have more people working in the field."

"I can see the benefits, but you'd have to acknowledge that thaumaturgy exists," Zelda replied. She handed the tablet back to Purah. "I wonder what my mother would think about that."

"That was before my time," Purah said crisply. "And entirely unnecessary, if you want my opinion. Your mother is a clever woman, and your father would be twice the man he is now if he still had her support. At least Urbosa is smart enough to take advantage of her talents. From what I understand, she has an advanced understanding of thaumaturgy. I assume she's teaching you?"

Zelda smiled politely, unsure of how to respond. Thankfully, she was spared by Impa, who strode across the floor of the lab as silently as a shadow. If Zelda hadn't been watching the door, she wouldn't have seen Impa enter the room at all.

"We'll need to debrief you on the matter of your mother," Impa said, not bothering with a greeting. "Needless to say, it wasn't just her thaumaturgical acumen that made it necessary for her to leave Hyrule. Her abilities were something of a public secret. She was even engaged in talks with my predecessor to change the Sheikah policies on the matter. I believe she wanted to set up a special program to help train children in the proper use of thaumaturgy."

Zelda was shaken by the sudden shift in the conversation, but she forced her expression to remain neutral. "Urbosa mentioned that the Gerudo have something like that," she said.

A thin smile surfaced on Impa's face, but her eyes were cold. "The Gerudo have their objections to the way we do things here in Hyrule, but we stand by our methods. We try to be as humane as we can, all things considered."

"Some people might disagree," Zelda said dryly.

"I wouldn't put the Gerudo on too high a pedestal," Impa countered. "For centuries they killed any male child who dared to be born to them, often along with the mother. Males that managed to survive to adulthood were treated as little better than indentured servants. Hyrule has taken in a steady stream of refugees from the desert over the years. No one likes to talk about it, but it's only recently that Gerudo _voe_ have been granted equal rights. You should ask Urbosa about that the next time you see her."

Zelda frowned. "I'd prefer to ask you now, actually."

"Fair enough." Impa dropped her gaze and ran her hand along one of the swirls of the ancient furnace in much the same way her sister had. "According to their traditions, any _voe_ could be the next Ganon. Some people in Hyrule still believe that any given Zelda could be a reincarnation of the goddess Hylia, but Hylia walking among us in human form would be an omen of an age of prosperity. If you believed that your child might possibly be responsible for the end of the world, though, you might feel differently."

Zelda tried to imagine Ganondorf as a child. Riju, who wasn't shy about expressing her distaste for the idea of reincarnation, hadn't been able to find any records of a male Gerudo born within a range of years that would correspond to Ganondorf's approximate age, at least not one who wasn't already well documented and accounted for. Still, she told Zelda not to discount the possibility that Ganondorf's birth may have been kept secret, especially if he had been born into a more traditional family far from the city. It seemed impossible to Zelda that someone like Ganondorf could ever have been young and vulnerable, but the likelihood that he may have been abused a child because of a silly superstition filled her with a cold and bitter anger.

"Surely the world isn't so easy to end," she said.

"If you were to go by the legends alone," Impa replied, "you'd think that every challenge to the stability of Hyrule has been an earth-shattering catastrophe. We'd be in a sorry state if that were the case, and I'd like to think that we Sheikah aren't completely incompetent. What we call 'Ganon' is another order of magnitude altogether, and it can't be solved or averted by politics or diplomacy. It's like a natural disaster driven by pure malice."

Zelda sighed. What Impa was saying didn't make sense. How could something like a hurricane or an earthquake be caused by "malice," and what did any of this have to do with restricting magical ability?

Purah's eyes darted between Impa and Zelda. "What my sweet baby sister means to say," she interjected, "is that 'malice' is a form of thaumaturgical energy. I'm not a fan of the term, personally, but 'malice' is the only name we have to describe something we can't even begin to understand. It resembles the energy we've found in the mechanical cores that power ancient technology, but it's infinitely more volatile, not to mention inhumanly destructive. Whatever it is, it's extraordinarily dangerous, and all we can hope to do is prevent it from manifesting."

"I think I'm beginning to understand," Zelda said. According to Ganondorf, magic was neither good nor evil. Rather, it was simply a way of perceiving and interacting with the world. For him, it was no different than math or science. For the Sheikah, on the other hand, magic seemed to have quasi-religious connotations. 'Thaumaturgy' was magical energy that could be harnessed and used for productive purposes, such as powering ancient technology. Meanwhile, magical energy that was not generated by humans and could not be controlled was 'malice.' But why call it "malice"? That seemed like an oddly judgmental expression to use for something that was, in Impa's analogy, as mindless as a natural disaster.

Impa met Zelda's eyes. "Unlike my sister, I'm not skilled at explaining myself. I hope you'll start to see how all of this fits together once we begin testing your thaumaturgical ability. Purah has asked me to train you. But only by your consent, of course."

Zelda was taken aback. As much as it was an honor to work directly under Purah, the prospect of spending time with Impa was even more daunting. Still, she was keen to learn more about Sheikah magic – or thaumaturgy, if that was what they insisted on calling it.

"It would be my pleasure," she replied.

"I like your new haircut, by the way," Impa said gently, as if offering an apology for her earlier severity. "It suits you."

"Thank you." Zelda smiled. "I did it myself."


	37. Chapter 37

**In which Ganondorf and Link take an after-hours stroll through the Museum of Hyrule.**

* * *

"This is top-notch work," Link said, studying the employee badge Ganondorf had printed for him. "You even got the lanyard right. Do you mind if I hold onto this?"

"By all means," Ganondorf replied. He knew how much Link enjoyed collecting various pieces of flotsam and jetsam, and there was no pressing need to destroy the evidence of their excursion.

"But I have to ask, why did you go through the trouble of creating fake badges? Couldn't we just come to the museum during the day? Like normal people?"

"I dislike crowds."

"I didn't think they'd just let us in the door. They didn't scan the barcodes or anything. You didn't even have to intimidate them. But I guess a researcher wouldn't be a hardcase, come to think of it. And no one can say that you didn't dress the part. That argyle sweater looks like something an archeologist dug up."

"It cost more than your rent," Ganondorf said. "I'll take fashion advice from you when you stop wearing cargo shorts."

Ganondorf hadn't expected the museum security to challenge him, but the barcodes on the back of the badges would have scanned with no problem whatsoever. As of this afternoon, he and Link were officially employees of the museum, at least according to the database in the institution's internal network. The museum's sitemap wasn't searchable, but it wasn't password protected. Finding a backdoor into the system had been the work of no more than half an hour. As far as Ganondorf was concerned, there was no limit to what you could access online if you simply knew where to look.

Since he returned from Lanayru, Ganondorf had tasked himself with compiling a list of property damage reports that occurred on the night before he found himself in Zelda's apartment. The locations of the incidents he checked weren't directly connected on a map, but there was a clear timeline. Chronologically speaking, the earliest report concerned a break-in at the Museum of Hyrule, which was said to contain a massive collection of ancient technology in its archives. Ganondorf had corroborated these rumors with a search through a private database of the museum's holdings. If nothing else, the building was worth a walkthrough.

Ganondorf made no secret of his motives to Link, who agreed to accompany him and act as a second pair of eyes. Based on the photos in his Skyloft feed, Link was a skilled observer, and it helped that he didn't have too many scruples about breaking and entering.

"How was your holiday with Sidon?" Ganondorf asked absentmindedly as he consulted the large floor map in the museum's central lobby.

"It was fantastic," Link replied, following along after him as he began walking to the wing devoted to ancient Hylian culture. "We spent a lot of time playing with the tablet Zelda gave me. The Sheikah Slate, she called it. I assume she gave you a full report. I've got to tell you, I don't know what use a normal person would have for something like that. It's wild. Did you know it can make bombs?"

"I'm aware of its functions."

"Really? No one besides me could even get it to turn on. Wait, let me guess. Did you hack into it?"

"Something like that."

"That figures. You'll have to show me what it's supposed to do sometime. I don't know if we were using it properly or not, but me and Sidon had a lot of fun up in the mountains around Zora's Domain. It's _gorgeous_ out there, and the food was amazing. I ate so much that I thought I was going to go into a coma, but the scenery is so beautiful that I didn't want to sleep. Almost everything in the city center around the palace is carved out of luminous stone. It glows in the dark, did you know that? The only time we went inside was when it rained. Everything had this lovely gentle light when it was overcast. It was beyond romantic. Between the swimming and the hiking and the, um, naps during the rain, I'm still a little sore. But in a good way, you know? I almost didn't want to come back to Hyrule."

Ganondorf nodded. He'd come to feel the same way about Lanayru during the short time he spent there. It was difficult to put a finger on what exactly he found appealing about the city in the desert, but it had grown on him.

"It sounds as though you've considered moving there permanently," he observed.

"To be with Sidon? I would in a heartbeat. But it's still too early to bring it up, and, you know. He _is_ a prince."

Ganondorf made a noncommittal sound, and Link changed the subject. "You know, it's funny. The Sheikah Slate has amazing thaumaturgical powers, but none of them are particularly useful. I mean, the thing can transform water into ice, but the blocks are so huge that I don't know where there'd be any use for them outside of, I don't know. An industrial warehouse, maybe? And it has this incredible magnetic power, but what am I going to do? Pick up a car? Why would I want to do that?

"I don't see the point of _any_ of it, really. The Sheikah Slate is easy enough to use, but the people who made it must have lived in a different world. It's like the Divine Beasts. I guess I can understand why someone would want to build a giant war machine, but who in the world would design _those_ things? They're completely fantastic. Sidon took me up to Vah Ruta, and it really does look like a giant elephant. It's marvelous, but entirely impractical. One good blow to the side could tip it right over.

"Maybe this sounds weird, but I think the nicest thing about the Sheikah Slate is its camera. It takes great photos, and there's a slight 3D effect when you tilt the device or adjust the touchscreen. There's an entire image gallery on there too. The only saved photos are pictures of birds and mushrooms, but I'm not complaining. I've never seen a lot of the things in those photos outside of the nature documentaries I used to watch when I was a kid. I don't know what Zelda expects me to do with the Sheikah Slate, but I know what I'd _like_ to do – I want to track down the location of each of those shots and figure out who took them. You can learn a lot about someone from their photography, and the person who had the tablet before I did must have loved being out in the wild. They must have seen some incredible sights."

Ganondorf was used to Link's rambling monologues. He enjoyed listening to him talk, and it was pleasant to walk through the dimly lit corridors of the museum. He could come back later with Zelda, who no doubt had any number of thoughts and opinions about ancient technology. He'd been daydreaming about Zelda as he explored Lanayru, but he hadn't gotten a chance to take her out before she insisted on leaving. It would be nice to spend an afternoon with her.

He was just about to ask Link for recommendations when he was hit by a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach. His head swam with vertigo. He stopped walking and scanned his eyes across the gallery as he waited for the sensation to pass.

He noticed a short span of blank wall that would have been a grainy eggshell white if the display lights had been turned on. It was slightly removed from the main wall. Ganondorf stepped over the velvet barrier rope set up in front of the wall and tapped it with his knuckles. Sure enough, it was whitewashed particle board. He located its edge, pulled it away from the main wall, and shoved it to the side to reveal a rough hole through the wood and plaster of the interior wall. Its jagged edges were at least twice as tall and wide as a person. There were still small chunks of debris on the floor, which was covered in thick gouges. It was as if a wrecking ball had swung down and demolished only this particular spot.

Beyond the hole was a trail of something that looked like dried tar. The faint acidic smell of creosote lingered in the air.

"Sweet Hylia, look at this mess," Link said from behind him. "Buddy, I hate to tell you, but this is what it was like in your apartment that night when Zelda had me come over to, ah, deal with you."

Ganondorf wasn't listening. He was consumed by a memory that wasn't quite a memory, but more like a memory of a dream. He could hear an echo of a woman's voice in his head. It sounded like Zelda, but he couldn't be sure. At the back of his mind he wondered if it might be one of the phantom voices Zelda heard herself when she was a child. _It's time_, the woman's voice said. _Wake up!_

Ganondorf allowed his feet to carry him along the tunnel of destruction, which led down an employee stairwell and into the museum archives. No one appeared to have made more than a minimal effort to clean the mess. It wasn't difficult to imagine why – even the shelves that hadn't been knocked over were filled with a disorganized jumble of dusty cardboard boxes and file folders. Unlike the neatness and precision of the Gerudo archives Riju had guided him through, this place was a disaster.

Link kept up a steady stream of patter, but Ganondorf paid him no mind as he pressed forward. The vertigo that assailed him earlier had dissipated. Now he felt only the drive of a nameless compulsion that was so sharp it made his eyes water and his ears ring.

Ganondorf paused only when he heard something fall to the floor at his back. He turned to see Link looking back at him with a sheepish smile. There was a pile of pottery shards at his feet.

"It was like this when I got here."

Ganondorf understood that Link was trying to lighten the situation, but he could only respond with a blank stare. His mouth was bone dry, and it was becoming hard to breathe.

He forced himself to swallow. "There must be hundreds of pots here," he managed to say. "I'm sure they wouldn't mind if they lost a few. You'd be doing them a favor."

Link nudged another pot sitting precariously close to the edge of a shelf with his elbow. He looked away and whistled as it shattered on the concrete floor with an oddly satisfying smash. "Oops," he said, shrugging.

Ganondorf took a deep breath, turned, and began walking. He had a suspicion that his face would be hideous if he attempted to smile.

The trail of black slime terminated at a large steel vault door that had been partially melted and ripped from its hinges. On the other side of the doorway was a dark auditorium that was as large as an airplane hangar. The room was filled with the shattered remains of what must have been ancient technology, but it was difficult to tell. Everything in the vicinity of the door was completely wrecked. Shards of glass and metal littered the floor along with large chunks of black stone and grainy ceramic tiling. The debris radiated out from a shallow pit. The concrete floor was warped and scorched with ash.

Ganondorf was inexplicably filled with rage as he gazed at the epicenter of the explosion. A hot jet of anger pulsed through him, thrumming like a heartbeat at his temples. A notion entered his mind, as cool as a splash of water on a warm day. It occurred to him that he could bring this entire building down around him. Just one earthquake, local and focused, right underneath the foundation. He could feel the stress points in the web of awareness that spread underneath his feet. The ruins of this place would be a sight to behold. Not as picturesque as the Arbiter's Grounds, certainly, and nowhere near the same scale, but this would be a good start. In this climate, it wouldn't take long at all for vegetation to reclaim the land. Thick vines would soon twine around the steel support pillars and _twist_ them until they shattered –

As Ganondorf struggled for purchase in his slipping mind, he became aware of an eerie sound. It was hideous and inhuman. If he wasn't mistaken, someone was screaming, and –

And it was him. Ganondorf clenched his jaw shut, bit his tongue, and forced himself to be still.

His heart raced as he carved each breath from the stale air. He barely knew where he was, but he knew he needed to see Zelda. Why, he couldn't say, but he needed. To see. Zelda.

He came back to himself as he focused on her name. No, he shouldn't see her. Not like this. Not when he couldn't be sure what he would do – or what he would become.

"Dude." Link circled around him at a safe distance and waved his hand in front of his face to catch his attention. "What the fuck."

Ganondorf exhaled slowly. "What the fuck indeed." He smoothed back his hair and adjusted the knot of his tie to widen his collar. He looked around the room again. The lighting wasn't good, but he could tell that most of the ancient technology stored in this cavernous space had been destroyed. If there were answers here, piecing them together would take far more time than he was willing to spend in this place.

"Did you hurt yourself?" Link asked in a tentative voice. "Are you, you know, injured?"

"No," Ganondorf answered. He was physically fine, but he felt as though something deep inside him had been ripped violently open. "Tell me honestly, did you not feel anything?"

"Not… really?"

"'Not really.'"

"Okay, fine. Not at all. But I'll be real with you, I'm starting to get creeped out."

"We've seen enough, then. We should leave. Unless you'd prefer to investigate further."

"I'd prefer not to, thanks for asking. I think I'd prefer to retire to the country, actually." Link crouched and picked up the remains of a plastic keyboard that had seen better days. He studied it briefly before tossing it back to the floor. "I think I'll start a farm. Eat fresh apples every day. Keep a few dogs. Raise a horse, maybe."

"I wouldn't mind doing a bit of that myself," Ganondorf said as he stepped over a pile of crushed ceramic plating.

"I think that might be good for you."

"Perhaps you'd like to get a picture of this before we leave."

"Only if you do that primal scream thing again. You know, get really into it. Maybe take your shirt off, beat your chest a few times."

Ganondorf gave him a sour look.

"Just kidding, the light is terrible. Are we done here?"

Ganondorf looked around once again. In the space of an instant, he saw a phantasmal vision of himself throwing up black bile as he supported the bulk of his bloated body on limbs with far too many joints. He could almost feel the shattered glass under hands that weren't hands, and he was once again pummeled by a bilious wave of vertigo. He wanted – he _needed_ – to claw his way into the open air and release himself from the pain of the monstrous pressure bearing down on him from all sides.

Ganondorf shut his eyes and let a few seconds pass before he opened them again. "We're done here."

He was done _here_, in any case. He'd managed to confirm that he had some sort of connection to Sheikah technology, but he hadn't yet formulated a hypothesis regarding why that might be. It would be necessary to gain possession of unbroken and functional artifacts before he could draw any conclusions.

Ganondorf had decided to give Zelda space after her prolonged silence during their trip back from the desert. The silence had been comfortable, and the drive had been pleasant. Nevertheless, he understood that Zelda needed to process her emotions alone, and he respected that. He had a crystal-clear idea of what he wanted to do with her when they saw each other again, but he had no desire to force himself on her. He would keep his distance until she was ready.

He felt no such obligation, however, to keep his distance from her lab.


	38. Chapter 38

**In which Zelda confronts her father.**

* * *

Hyrule Castle was reconstructed after the Great Calamity, albeit on a much smaller scale. The country had been a constitutional democracy for more than a century, and the sprawling complex of buildings had long since been converted into government offices.

The original castle had been built on top of a hill in central Hyrule. It was said that, before the Calamity, the structure was large enough to be seen from almost everywhere on the plain spreading out from it. Most of the city had been leveled in order to make way for construction, but the slopes of the hill remained, and the government offices crowned the skyline with towers of glass and steel.

The network of administrative buildings was like a castle in its own way, vast and labyrinthine. The grand scale of the architecture was intended to be imposing, and it was often successful. Zelda had come here with her father many times when she was younger, however, and she did not feel the least bit uncomfortable sitting in his office now.

Rhoam hadn't hidden the fact that he knew his daughter was working under Purah, so she returned the favor by telling him that she'd met with her mother. He already knew, of course, but his questions regarding Hilda's well-being were so heartfelt that Zelda was embarrassed. The awkwardness of her father's lingering affection for the woman who was still legally his wife did little to allay Zelda's anger. She pressed him on the matter of her mother's exile, and the regret he expressed was sincere. He would have done things differently if he could, he explained, but he was hindered by the pressures of his position. The higher he rose, the more limited his options became.

"Then why did you run for office?" Zelda asked, interrupting him as soon as he began to go into the details of the story. "Were you really so ambitious that you didn't stop to think about what would be required of you?"

"Ambition had nothing to do with it. I was idealistic. I thought I had the strength of character to avoid becoming like the politicians I resented. I could do things differently, I thought. I could _be_ different."

He shook his head. "I was mistaken. I didn't have the slightest understanding of how power works, or the compromises I would have to make to maintain it. I was a novice at the game, but your mother was a key player. She made everything seem so easy."

"You resented my mother, then."

"I respected your mother. I don't mind admitting that I was afraid of her at times, but I loved her all the same." He sighed. "I would have done anything for her. For the first few years of our marriage, I did whatever she asked. It took me some time to realize that this wasn't what she needed from me."

"What she needed from you? I don't understand what you mean."

"Your mother knows a great deal about the legends of the royal family of Hyrule, probably more than anyone else alive. For all her research and study, and for all her access to the diaries and other records left behind by her ancestors, Hilda never believed that any of it was real. I was more than happy to agree with her until we had incontrovertible proof to the contrary."

"Which was?"

"You, of course. You and your marvelous abilities. It was Urbosa who finally convinced me to see reason, but your mother refused to be swayed. That's when I realized her denial was an attempt to protect herself from the inevitable."

"The inevitable," Zelda repeated. She trusted Urbosa even if she didn't trust her father, but this conversation had taken a strange turn.

"You've heard a number of the old legends yourself. Tell me, how many of the mythical princesses had mothers?"

"Surely you can't mean…"

"That every mother of a 'true' Zelda must die, yes. Urbosa arrived at the same conclusion. The only way for your mother's life to be spared was to remove her from Hyrule. Urbosa finally took matters into her own hands. This almost resulted in an international crisis, unfortunately. I only barely managed to cover up the incident."

"Why couldn't you follow her? Or arrange for me to visit her?"

"I wanted to, believe me, but it was impossible. We needed to get you out of the hospital first. The Sheikah were convinced that, with your talents, you could lead them to the source of the Calamity. They said it would take time, but allowing you to become the subject of their experiments was one compromise I wasn't willing to make. Meanwhile, there was no word from your mother. I decided that I would respect her silence. It was only later that I understood, diplomatically speaking, that it was my responsibility to initiate communication, but so much time had passed that even the most formal contact began to seem impossible."

Zelda didn't respond. This was a sorry excuse, and her father knew it. She had no intention of assuaging his guilty conscience.

"Speaking of impossible," he said, changing the subject, "I should tell you I met that friend of yours. The one you introduced to Urbosa as a tech investor."

Zelda was dismayed by the speed at which that particular piece of gossip had traveled, but she kept her face neutral. "Yes, I seem to recall that he mentioned meeting you," she said.

"You'll have to forgive me if I ask about the nature of your relationship with him."

"I'm happy to answer, but there's not much I can tell you. I met him by coincidence, and he's a friend of Riju's," Zelda said, careful not to lie. "He specializes in my field of research, but we don't have any sort of formal relationship. I haven't known him that long. Why do you ask?"

"We only spoke briefly, but his reputation preceded him. That man is dangerous, Zelda. His ambition is boundless, and there must be a reason he's decided to call himself Ganondorf. I don't know what he's planning, but he may be involved in something that could result in the next Calamity."

"That's absurd." Zelda had considered the possibility herself, but hearing her father say it out loud made it seem petty and ridiculous.

"Tell me, Zelda. What could a man like that possibly want? He's satisfied with wealth now, but will that be enough? What will he do if he faces an obstacle in his path? Will he seek power?"

"There's nothing stopping him from doing that in his own country. I'm given to understand he's had offers."

"Then there must be a reason he's here instead."

Zelda clenched her fists in her lap in frustration. If she knew why Ganondorf was here, then she wouldn't be having this ridiculous conversation in the first place. She'd been hoping to get concrete answers grounded in reality, and she was beginning to find her father's superstitious convictions annoying. _And besides, Hyrule isn't that great_, she wanted to tell him. _Not everyone is in love with it like you are_.

"Let me tell you about the truth about the Calamity," he said, interrupting her thoughts.

"I already know," she replied. "Impa gave me the lecture."

"I doubt she told you everything. Calamity Ganon is worse than anything you can imagine. Hyrule was a thriving kingdom, yet the majority of its population was wiped out in less than a day after Ganon manifested. Those who survived died later from starvation and exposure, or from illnesses that could have easily been prevented before the kingdom's infrastructure collapsed. This city was built on top of countless ruins at the behest of queens and princesses, and later prime ministers and cabinet officers, who sought to hide a past that could never be memorialized."

Zelda narrowed her eyes. "They lied to their people, then."

"I understand your frustration, but you must learn to see the matter from their perspective. Calamity Ganon could not be stopped, only contained. The princess who fought it managed to seal it away, but no one can say how long that seal will hold. It might last for hundreds of years to come, but one day it will fail. Can you imagine what sort of chaos would befall Hyrule if people understood the threat hanging over their heads?"

"I imagine that they would call for a leader who would be able to deal with that threat."

A wry smile crossed her father's face. "Let me assure you that this isn't a matter of keeping incompetent and corrupt politicians in office. Being 'properly' able to deal with the threat was how your family remained in power for so long. Your mother had a pet theory that 'Calamity Ganon' was little more than a scapegoat to be herded out and beaten every time that power began to wane."

"Fine, I concede the point. Assuming Ganon _is_ real, and assuming that women born into the bloodline of the former royal family are capable of fighting it, how can you know it hasn't already been dealt with?"

Zelda's father nodded. "That's an excellent question. Your mother has been trying to find the answer for more than a decade. I assume you're not familiar with her work."

Zelda grit her teeth and remained silent.

"That's understandable. I hope that one day you'll find it in your heart to forgive her – to forgive _us_, I should say – enough to read her books. She's quite a skilled writer, a talent I never knew she possessed until… Well, suffice it to say that she was a master of everything she attempted, and this is no exception. Her writing is beautiful, and her research is impeccable. She also has the advantage of being allowed unrestricted access to the Gerudo archives. Do you know what she found?"

"You know that I don't."

"It appears that what the Princess Zelda who confronted Calamity Ganon sealed was merely a manifestation of something the Sheikah call 'malice.' I have precious little knowledge of magic, or 'thaumaturgy,' as they call it, but I'm given to understand that it requires as much practice and focused attention as any other skill."

"That's my understanding as well," Zelda confirmed. "Impa told me that malice is a type of thaumaturgy, but I don't understand why it was given such a name that's so… poetic, for want of a better word."

"According to your mother, malice isn't thaumaturgy at all, but a pure form of the energy utilized by practitioners of thaumaturgy. If a person is a conduit through which magic flows in the form of thaumaturgy, malice is what happens when the mental floodgates used to regulate this energy are destroyed. The person will become possessed, as it were, by malice."

Zelda frowned. When she worked magic with Ganondorf, that was exactly how she felt – as if all the barriers in her mind had been lifted. As if she had access to incredible energy and infinite potential, as if anything were possible.

"If practicing thaumaturgy is the same as any other skill, how is this 'malice' different from a normal state of flow? Why do the Sheikah consider it to be so hateful?" she asked.

"Based on what your mother found – in old Yiga manuscripts, of all places – mortal minds cannot come into contact with pure magical energy and remain intact. One's sense of 'self' and 'reality' are lost, and this mental fracture is exacerbated by the incredible pain a thaumaturgist experiences when they exceed their limits. You are aware that the Yiga were a sect of the Sheikah, of course. It's said that the ancient Sheikah were once the guard dogs and hunting hounds of the royal family. If they could torture someone to such an extent that their mind was completely destroyed, they could apparently take advantage of the resulting 'malice' to work great magic."

"I'm not sure I trust the propaganda of a radical military splinter group."

"It should be taken with a grain of salt, certainly. But let's follow this theory to its logical conclusion. If someone with immense magical ability – someone as powerful as your mother – were to experience intense pain for so long that they would do _anything_ to stop it, their hatred and fury would eventually get the best of them. Their malice would then take on a tangible form."

Zelda felt as though she were on the verge of understanding something important, but it eluded her.

"So you're suggesting that Calamity Ganon is a manifestation of malice," she said, seeking confirmation that she had at least drawn the correct conclusion about this particular aspect of her father's argument.

"Exactly."

"But the princess destroyed this manifestation. She must have, or we wouldn't be here now."

"She and her chosen hero destroyed the _manifestation_. Or rather, the manifestations. There were more than one, apparently. Along with the creature the princess fought and contained within Hyrule Castle, separate manifestations infested the Divine Beasts and had to be dealt with by the princess's hero."

"Then why create the Divine Beasts at all, if they could be 'infested,' as you put it?"

"At the time of the Calamity, the Sheikah assumed that there would be only one manifestation of Ganon's malice. They seem to have underestimated how powerful it was, and how protean."

Something nagged at Zelda's mind, but she still couldn't pin it down. She took a breath to calm herself before bringing the conversation back to her original point. "So if the manifestation of malice in Hyrule Castle was destroyed by the princess, and if the offshoot manifestations in the Divine Beasts were destroyed by the hero, what does anyone have to fear?"

"What does anyone have to fear indeed." Zelda's father fell silent as he removed two crystal tumblers from an ornamental display to the side of his desk. "Would you care for a glass of brandy?"

Zelda paused before giving a curt nod. If her father were trying to make amends by having a frank conversation with her, she may as well meet him halfway by accepting his olive branch. It disturbed her to see how his hand shook as he poured from a bottle that he removed from a drawer of his desk. He had calmed himself by the time he raised his glass. Zelda wanted to keep her mind clear, so she left her own glass untouched.

"As I said earlier," Rhoam continued, "what were defeated were _manifestations_ of malice. The _source_ of that malice still lies in wait, somewhere deep underground. It may have been temporarily silenced, but its malice still grows. This is why the Sheikah were so keenly interested in your gift of prophecy, and this is why they were willing to subject you to what was essentially torture. When Ganon's malice erupts again, everyone in Hyrule will die – everyone you've ever known, everyone you've never known, the young and the old, the weak and the strong alike. It will be nothing less than another Calamity."

Zelda took a breath, held it, and released it slowly. She didn't want to let her annoyance at her father's superstitious nonsense show, but it was difficult to keep her voice level.

"Do you really think a single person is capable of all that? A single person who has been alive for hundreds, possibly even thousands of years? Someone whose moods can be predicted by the stars, or whatever type of divination the Sheikah use to determine the course of history? The Calamity undeniably happened, and it may have even been magical in nature, but surely you can't believe this."

Zelda's father took another drink. "I'm afraid I can't say. I leave Sheikah business to the Sheikah, and your family's business to your family. My concerns are the mundane matters of the world I can see with my own eyes. I wanted to have a hand in the governance of the nation I grew up in, and I never had any intention of becoming a hierophant of the cult of Hylia. Your mother convinced me otherwise. She showed me that magic was real. Can you say that it's not?"

"If you have so much respect for magic, why seek to restrain mine? Why did you drug me?" Zelda tried and failed to keep her voice from rising. "Why did you lie to me for my entire life?"

Rhoam drained his glass and held it in his hand. He watched the light play across the facets cut into the crystal before he answered. "Your power was of a different magnitude altogether. More than any stars, more than any omens, that's what convinced us that you are a 'Zelda,' perhaps even the _true_ Zelda. The Sheikah thought that, with your powers of dream and prophecy, you might lead them to the source of the Calamity. Your mother couldn't abide by their methods, however, and neither could I. We decided that the safest course of action was to prevent you from manifesting any magic at all. You see, we were afraid that your magic might call to whatever still lies underground. If the spark of your power were dampened, perhaps that might keep the source of malice from awakening alongside you."

He sighed. "I only wanted what was best for you. That's what parents say when they've done something cruel, isn't it? I hope you'll understand in time, and I pray that you'll find it in your heart to forgive me."

Zelda understood the argument her father was trying to make, but that didn't change the fact that it was absurd. Magic was undoubtedly real, but her mother had the right of it – Ganon was a scapegoat, not to mention a pathetic excuse for the way she'd been treated as a child.

_No wonder my mother left you_, she wanted to say, but she took a small sip of brandy instead. Her father was so deluded that he couldn't even see the inconsistencies in his own thinking. She pitied him.

"The Sheikah keep their knowledge close, but I have faith that you'll find the answers you're looking for," Rhoam continued after a brief pause. "I can repeat what I've been told, but I'm not an expert. Still, I like to think that I have some small measure of expertise in human character. The Sheikah are frightening, but they abide by the limitations set on them by law. Even the most avaricious and power-hungry politicians and capitalists I've done business with during my tenure can be dealt with so long as they respect the conventions of this country and its legal code. They're ambitious because they can envision a future for themselves here, and they will not act to jeopardize it."

Zelda's father looked up from his empty glass and met her eyes. "This is why I must once again warn you about the man you call your friend. I can't imagine the inner workings of the mind of someone who would willingly take the name Ganondorf, but the future seen by such a man is likely far removed from anything you or I could imagine. His choice of name belies the fact that he's aware of the old legends, and it's clear where his sympathies lie."

"I've heard enough about legends to last a lifetime," Zelda said as she put down her glass and rose from her chair. "I hope you'll be more reasonable the next time we talk."

As frustrating as her conversation with her father had been, it had given Zelda a great deal to think over. If the magical energy the Sheikah called malice could not be channeled through a conscious mind, what did that mean regarding her own abilities? As she had told Ganondorf, she no longer heard voices or saw nightmares with the same frequency she did when she was younger, but now – as then – there was no conscious effort involved. Her dreams were about as far as you could get from "conscious." She wasn't too terribly satisfied with her life at the moment, but it was offensive to call whatever ability she had "malice," as if it were some fearful and unspeakable thing that could never be understood.

_Sweet Farore, they might as well just say I'm on my period_, she thought. A grim smile rose to her face as she imagined Ganon causing the Calamity for no other reason than because it was that time of the month.

Still, her superstitious father was more correct than even he knew. Zelda glanced down at the back of her right hand before squeezing it into a fist. She had indisputable evidence that at least some elements of the old legends were true. Whatever powered devices like the Divine Beasts and the Sheikah Slate could very well be related to malice. As Purah said, the machines were created by people just like herself. Regardless of whether she was a "true" Zelda, it stood to reason that she was in a perfect position to solve the mysteries of the ancient technology that had fascinated her for so long.

Perhaps Ganon _was_ real. Her nightmares were certainly real, and they could very well be prophetic omens. For all she knew, reactivating the ancient Sheikah technology might be a catalyst for breaking whatever "seal" had been placed on the source of the Calamity. Ganondorf's sudden appearance in Hyrule could be another omen. He might even be the source of the Calamity himself, although Zelda found the idea laughable. Aside from the admittedly unpleasant side effects of his exposure to ancient technology, Ganondorf seemed to be in full possession of his mind, so much so that he had probably never done a single thing in his life unconsciously. As formidable as he was, he was hardly on the level of a natural disaster.

Whatever – or whoever – it was, Zelda decided that it didn't matter if Calamity Ganon was a force of nature. She remembered how powerful she felt on the night when she and Ganondorf commanded the desert winds to bring rain down onto the dry earth. _She_ was a force of nature, and Ganon should be afraid of _her_.


	39. Chapter 39

"Listen, I'm not saying I actually believe this, but hear me out. Maybe Hyrule _should_ return to a monarchy. I can't imagine how anything gets done in this mess."

Riju scowled at the dusty cardboard boxes piled along the basement corridor. They were stacked almost to the ceiling, and many of them were beginning to disintegrate around the edges.

"Wait, hold up. Are those actually floppy discs?"

"I wouldn't touch that." Ganondorf shook his head at Riju, who was on the verge of opening the loose flap of a box whose sides were falling apart.

Riju withdrew her hand. "You're right, I wouldn't want to bring down an avalanche. Mipha wouldn't stand for this, you know. She'd snap her fingers and the funding to digitize all of this mess would appear like magic. Like I said, I'm no monarchist, but you have to admire that sort of absolute authority. It's efficient. A little evil, but definitely efficient. I don't suppose you've met Mipha, have you?"

"Just her brother."

"I'm sure you'll meet her soon enough. If you think Sidon is attractive, you're in for a treat." Riju covered her mouth as she coughed. "They've got to have a better way of disposing of these documents. Look at this stack, I bet it's all expense reports from twenty years ago. Who needs this?"

"Someone with something to hide."

"You think the Hylians built a literal bureaucratic maze down here?"

"It's an efficient recycling program. There's no need to dispose of anything if you can use your paper waste to camouflage your secret passageways. It kills two octoroks with one arrow."

Riju turned around, looked back at him, and grinned. "We're on the right track, then."

"I would say so."

The lobby of the central tower of the complex of government buildings was magnificent, with polished marble columns supporting vaulting ceilings. Meanwhile, in the subbasement, the floor was tiled with faded squares of linoleum that curled at the edges like scabs under the sickly light of bare fluorescent tubes.

"Is this how you broke into Zelda's lab, sneaking through a secret passageway?"

"I didn't 'break in.' There was no sneaking involved. Let's say I gained dubiously authorized access."

"You know what, I don't need to know the details. What did you think of the lab?"

"They're storing a large cache of ancient technology, but I didn't want to linger. From what I could tell, the level of the technology is both highly advanced and somewhat primitive. Whoever designed it intended for it to last a long time. The ceramic patterns are perfectly balanced to resist stress and erosion. A single hard drive is as large as a car, perhaps to prevent the machine from being moved or lost. The armored Guardian scouts have an unstable center of gravity and can be dismantled from below, but this could be a deliberate feature intended to facilitate repair and the quick exchange of moveable parts."

"So you saw a guardian, did you? What did it look like up close?"

"The heads are larger than you'd expect, and the claws are smaller." Ganondorf paused as he considered the best way to describe the machines. "They're almost cute," he said.

Riju laughed. "I can see why you and Zelda get along."

It pleased Ganondorf to hear this. "What surprised me," he continued, "was how low the level of technology in the lab was. The computers used by the researchers are almost as primitive as the ancient technology. Copies of typewritten notes are printed out in duplicate. The desk chairs must have been thirty years old. I think I saw a fax machine."

"I'm impressed you were able to stay there long enough to dig up information about this place."

"Their security was just as outdated as their office furniture."

"That's government funding for you. So all we have to do is find the service elevator on this level, right?"

"And enter the code, yes. That should take us deeper underground." Ganondorf didn't add that, if there were any maps of the caves below the subbasement, he hadn't been able to find them.

"What do you think they're hiding down there?" Riju asked. "Do you think it's another Divine Beast?"

"I couldn't say." He only knew what Zelda told him about how she was taken there as a child. If there was some connection between them, he might be able to find a sign of it here. If nothing else, he wanted to see the site for himself and determine whether it merited future investigation. He didn't understand Riju's desire to accompany him, but he'd needed her assistance to gain access to the basement of the Hyrule city government offices. Ganondorf didn't inquire after her motives. Her friendship with Zelda was enough reason to extend his trust until she was ready to explain herself.

"You know, I keep thinking about the Yiga Clan," Riju said in a soft voice, as if talking to herself. "They used to have their headquarters out in the foothills of the mountains on the northern edge of the desert. We have all sorts of records pertaining to them stealing from us, mainly food. Their lives couldn't have been easy. Based on reports from the time of the Calamity, the Yiga Clan must have had dozens of members, maybe even hundreds, all trained marital artists and skilled at magic. They apparently blended in well with normal society, and they could even pass as Hylians. So why did they defect from the Sheikah to go live all the way out in the wasteland? You know how the desert gets, and the higher elevation makes the extremes in temperate even more unpleasant."

Ganondorf listened as he navigated the floor plan he'd memorized. The poorly lit corridors of the subbasement formed a maze of innumerable branching paths. The technicians who serviced the building probably needed to consult a map every time they had to come down here to do maintenance.

"I know people in difficult circumstances join cults," Riju continued as she followed along after him, the tapping of her heels muffled by the boxes lining the halls. "Nayru only knows how many weird cults there are out in the desert. About five years ago we had to grant a land occupation permit to a group of Gorons who called themselves 'Sand Eaters,' whatever that means. But this business about the Yiga Clan worshiping Ganon sounds like bullshit. I had our head archivist consult a collection of primary sources, but she told me there's not much to go on. Everyone says the Yiga worshiped Ganon, but nobody can say how or why. I mean, every member of that group was an adult Sheikah. What did they know?

If the legends are true, and if Ganon possessed the Guardians and the Divine Beasts, then the Yiga Clan didn't have anything to do with the Calamity at all. They certainly didn't _cause_ it, we understand that much. Who knows, they may have even been trying to _prevent_ it. Although I guess they could have just been annoyed by the royal family's prohibition against technology. Din help me, I'd get upset too if some king came along and tried to take away my smartphone."

"We're here," Ganondorf said. He was interested in Riju's line of thought, but he needed to concentrate on the matter at hand. They were in the right place, but there was no elevator to be seen in this stretch of hallway.

Ganondorf's eyes fell on a tall metal filing cabinet coated in a nondescript shade of gray paint. The cabinet cast a slight shadow against the wall, indicating that it hadn't been pushed all the way back. There were no boxes stacked on top of it. Even more telling, he had been following a trail of black scuff marks on the linoleum, and it stopped here.

"Stand back," he said, waiting for Riju to retreat before pivoting the cabinet on a hidden hinge. It swung forward to reveal an old-fashioned service elevator.

"Well I'll be damned." Riju slipped past him and tugged at the elevator's metal grating. It refused to budge.

She stepped away and rubbed her palms on her pants. "You want to do the honors?"

Brown flecks of rust dotted the edges of the grating, which looked like a tetanus shot waiting to happen. Ganondorf had no intention of touching it. He grasped the metal in his mind and snapped his fingers. It slid open with a discomfiting squeal. He hoped the elevator mechanism was in better condition.

"Neat trick." Riju stepped over the threshold and onto the platform. A clear white LCD light flicked on as soon as she entered, revealing that the elevator was far more sophisticated than indicated by the ancient gate screwed into the plaster drywall of the basement.

"It looks like someone put some money into this," she observed.

Ganondorf walked onto the elevator platform and stood beside Riju. He was relieved that the floor didn't sink under his weight. There was only one button on the burnished metal panel set into the interior wall. He pressed it with his knuckle, and the platform slowly began to descend along a diagonal incline. Unlike the gate, the elevator was perfectly silent.

Riju looked up at him with an amused expression. "A bit quick on the trigger, aren't you?"

Ganondorf shrugged. "We've already come this far."

"I was worried there would be cameras, but don't think there's any recording equipment here."

"There shouldn't be any underground either. It seems modern technology doesn't work well in the caves."

Riju craned her neck back to look at the lighting fixture at the top of the shaft, which was steadily growing smaller. "I hope that's not the only light we're going to have."

Ganondorf had considered the matter, but walking into the city government building with an industrial flashlight hadn't been a gamble he was willing to take. He removed a cigarette lighter from his pocket and offered it to Riju. "We'll make do. I remember reading something about there being a supply of wooden torches."

"Wooden torches? I guess they spent all their money on the elevator," Riju grumbled before lapsing into silence. The platform continued to descend, and the remaining light grew dimmer by the second.

They eventually settled at the bottom of the shaft with a smooth landing. There was no gate on this level, just a rocky cave filled with shadowy mountains of debris. Riju sparked the lighter flame and held it at eye level before stepping onto the dirt floor. As Ganondorf's eyes adjusted, he began to make out the distinctive ceramic swirls of ancient technology. He took out his phone and used the light of the screen to get a better look. They were surrounded by Guardians in various stages of decay. The cavern narrowed as they walked. After a minute or two, they arrived at a pile of dismantled Guardian parts so large and impossibly tangled that there appeared to be no way too move through it.

Riju stopped and held the lighter above her head. The small flame revealed a pile of refuse that stretched to the ceiling and blocked the entrance to the main cavern.

"It looks like this is as far as we go," she said. "Unless you can figure out a way for us to haul away all this junk."

"We won't have to do it ourselves."

"Oh? What's the plan, then?"

"Just watch."

Working on the basis of his brief contact with the Sheikah Slate, Ganondorf had developed a piece of software that could interface with ancient technology. It was partially programming and partially magic, but most of the code was pure guesswork. He hadn't had an opportunity to refine his work until his brief foray into Zelda's lab, where he'd consulted Zelda's own notes regarding an enormous hard drive she called a 'guidance stone.' He checked his program by comparing it to the tablet Zelda had apparently been using to interact with the ancient computer, and he was fairly certain it would work. This was a perfect opportunity to test it.

Ganondorf launched the app from the home screen of his phone. The camera opened, and he used it to scan the cave. After a minute of trial and error, he was able to isolate a Guardian that seemed to be fairly intact. He pulled a control panel onto the screen and tapped the 'activate' button, and the infrared light on his phone began to pulse with magenta light.

The Guardian received the signal, and the cracks between its ceramic swirls were flooded with the same florid pink luminescence. With a wheezing sound like a long, dry cough, the machine shuddered and lifted itself onto its spindly legs.

"Holy shit," Riju muttered. The Guardian's head swiveled in her direction, and the cyclopean lens of the eye set into its head seemed to blink as it regarded her. "Is it going to kill us?" she asked.

"Probably not," Ganondorf replied as he played with the controls. The Guardian shimmied back and forth, its legs emitting faint buzzing sounds as they moved. Ganondorf felt sorry for the thing, which didn't deserve to be abandoned here without proper maintenance.

"Look at how all those legs move, that's amazing. It must have taken someone forever to program that," Riju mused. "You know what? It _is_ kind of cute. I bet Zelda would love this thing."

"I'm going to activate its targeting system. I haven't tested this yet, but it should work," Ganondorf said as he pulled up a second set of controls on his screen. "Get behind me."

"Okay boss," Riju replied with a wry grin. "What you're about to do, is it safe?"

"No, I would say not. This is extremely dangerous."

Ganondorf smiled and tapped the screen.

There was a low hiss, and the cave was filled with the sharp smell of ozone.

A split second later, the Guardian fired a laser at the pile of debris in front of them. The blockage was blown backwards, leaving a clean trail in its wake.

The guardian twisted its eye around to regard him, almost as if it were expecting approval.

"Clever girl," he said, and it blinked again.

Riju sucked in her breath. "So, just to be clear, you're not an evil mad scientist, right? You don't have any plans for world domination? Just making sure."

Ganondorf's smile faded. It would be ridiculous for him to plan world domination when he could barely summon the courage to call Zelda. He'd waited too long, and now it was awkward. He planned to ask Riju for advice regarding the matter, assuming they didn't die down here or get arrested as soon as they returned aboveground.

"My only plan is to see what's in this cave."

"Do we have to take the Guardian with us?"

"I don't see why we wouldn't."

"It's a giant murder machine."

"It's a mobile source of light."

"Fair enough, but it's still creepy. Can I at least give it a name?"

"No one is stopping you."

"Let's call it Patricia."

"Patricia."

"I used to have a sand seal named Patricia," Riju replied. "She had the same big blue eyes and dopey look on her face."

"Patricia, then," Ganondorf said, somewhat disappointed. 'Patricia' would work well enough, but he was thoroughly charmed by the keen elegance of the machine's design and the sleek efficiency of its movements. If they had to give the Guardian a name, he would have preferred to call it Zelda.


	40. Chapter 40

Zelda had been on edge lately. For the first time in her life, she couldn't find the ability to concentrate. Everything irritated her. She had competent subordinates, but it was frustrating to delegate tasks that she preferred to do herself. It was only now, after everyone else had gone home, that she was free to focus on her work.

She scowled at the inert Guardian in front of her. Despite her best efforts, it adamantly refused to respond to her attempts to activate it. It had been like this every night for the past week, and Zelda was running out of ideas.

The Guardian was Zelda's pet project, but she hadn't made much progress beyond opening the chassis. She was grateful that Purah hadn't objected to her attempts to study the Guardian, but she was at a loss regarding how she could restore it to full functionality.

Working in the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab wasn't as Zelda imagined it would be. It didn't take her long to realize that everything was buried under a mountain of bureaucracy, and the state of the lab's workspace was disappointing. There was none of her former lab's corporate sheen, and only a fraction of the money. No outside parties were allowed into the building, so she didn't even have Link's deliveries to look forward to.

Purah didn't hesitate to voice her own complaints as she showed Zelda how to work around the various inconveniences, and her handsome assistant Symin was always ready to lend a strong and capable hand. Symin was sweet and enthusiastic, not to mention extremely skilled at his job, but Zelda had a feeling that Purah hired him for somewhat less than scientific reasons. She wondered if Ganondorf would be jealous that she was working in such close proximity to such an attractive man, but she couldn't imagine him being more than amused. It would probably never occur to him to be jealous. Zelda had never met a person so utterly lacking in self-doubt. She wished some of his confidence would rub off on her.

As far as she could tell, the major challenge faced by the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab was funding. Perhaps the research might have military applications, but Hyrule hadn't maintained a standing military in more than a century. Unless the lab became a publicly traded corporation, which seemed unlikely, its funding would have to come from the private sector – a wealthy donor, perhaps. Zelda was no expert on financial matters, but she didn't believe that it would take an unreasonably large sum of money to update the equipment and hire additional employees. They would need just enough funding to gather the data necessary to understand what they were working with. After that, they might consider declaring nonprofit status so that they could present the results of their research to the public.

But what would these "results" even look like? Not even Purah had made much headway into understanding the devices housed in the lab. Nothing she tried herself had any effect, even when she attempted to use magic. Link could activate the Sheikah Slate, but that seemed to be the limit of his inexplicable influence on ancient technology.

As much as Zelda hated to admit it, Ganondorf was the only person who could figure out how to make any headway into the lab's research. His understanding of ancient technology seemed almost innate, and he could probably make this Guardian get up and walk if he wanted.

Where _was_ he, anyway? Link still texted her at regular intervals throughout the day, as did Riju. It was a hassle to keep up with the two of them, but they both seemed to understand that she couldn't always respond right away. Oddly enough, she was even getting texts from Sidon. Mipha was more than likely putting him up to it. Even if she was, Zelda didn't care; his messages were still kind and thoughtful. Everyone was being so supportive, and she was grateful.

"While Ganondorf is nowhere to be found," she muttered to herself as she stared at the blank and empty eye of the Guardian. She wanted to call him, but she didn't have the slightest clue about what to say. Her mind drew a complete blank when she tried to imagine inviting him out on a date. Did he have any hobbies? What did he even like to do? It would feel strange to ask him to come to her apartment just to have tea with her. She felt ashamed of how she had all but forced herself on him in Lanayru. What was worse, she wanted to do it again.

"Why won't you move, you silly thing." Zelda pounded the Guardian's ceramic casing with her fist. "You just sit there like a lump of stone, don't you? Taking up space and being useless. What do you want me to do? Why can't you just _work_?"

"You might get better results if you tried being nice," a voice said at her back.

Zelda refused to turn around, but she could smell him, the starch of his suit and the faint trace of his aftershave. It didn't surprise her at all that he would be here, but still she asked. "How did you get in?"

"Magic."

Zelda could hear the grin in his voice. "Don't be facetious."

"Link told me the location of the lab," he explained as he approached. "The rest was easy."

"How did you get through the security doors?"

"I told you – magic."

He was almost certainly telling the truth. Still, he could have asked for her permission before showing up in the dead of night. "I thought we talked about stalking."

"How bold of you to assume that you're the only thing here I'm interested in."

It occurred to Zelda that this wasn't the first time Ganondorf had been inside the lab. She knew this must be the case as soon as the thought entered her mind. She felt a flash of annoyance followed immediately by relief. It would save her the trouble of an explanation if he was already familiar with her work.

"As long as you're here, you might as well make yourself useful."

"It would be my pleasure."

Ganondorf's voice was low and silky, and the relish with which he said "pleasure" gave her goosebumps. He must be teasing her. She decided to ignore him.

"The way you unlocked the Sheikah Slate – can you explain how you did it? I assume you used magic. What you did, does it work with all ancient technology?"

"The tech needs to have a lockable interface in order to be unlocked."

"I appreciate the tautology, but I asked you to be useful. The Guardians don't have an interface."

"Then you must make one yourself."

"But how – "

"Magic. You've already emulated the interface of the Sheikah Slate on the tablet you connected to the Guidance Stone. All you need is a magical signature to initiate contact between the two devices. You could develop hardware to transmit an appropriate signal through trial and error, but that would be inefficient."

How did he know about the Guidance Stone? "Did you read my notes?" she asked sharply. "How many times have you been here?"

Ganondorf pressed his phone into her palm and wrapped his fingers around hers. "I've only come once before," he said. "I needed to test an interface of my own. It was successful. I have no further need to consult your research notes. I came here tonight because I wanted to find _you_."

Zelda could feel herself blushing, but there was nothing she could do to stop the color rising to her cheeks, not with Ganondorf standing so close. "How did you know I would be here?" she asked.

"I called. You didn't pick up. You clearly weren't at home, so I came here. It was a lucky guess."

It was no such thing. Ganondorf had somehow known she would be here, but Zelda let it slide. "What am I supposed to do with your phone?"

"I'm sure you can figure it out for yourself."

Zelda bit back a retort concerning what Ganondorf could do for _himself_ as she swiped the screen on. If she wasn't mistaken, the display contained a set of controls, with red buttons marked "scan" and "activate" in the upper corners. Touching her finger to the "activate" button didn't do anything, so Zelda pressed "scan." The phone's camera opened. She raised the lens so that the Guardian was in the viewfinder and then clicked "activate." She felt an intense jolt of – magic? Yes, it was probably magic – flow across her skin.

The Guardian shuddered once, and then again more violently. Its head swiveled with a rough and grainy sound like falling sand, and its singular eye began to glow with a vibrant cyan light. As the Guardian turned to "look" at her, the light flickered, making it seem as if the machine were blinking. She waved her hand from side to side in front of her body, and the Guardian's eye followed the motion.

"Dear Hylia," Zelda muttered. "Do its legs move?"

"If you want them to," Ganondorf replied. He reached around her to indicate the four-pronged directional pad on the screen.

Zelda was tempted, but she decided that it might not be the best idea to have the Guardian careening across the lab while she learned how to control it. She would need to find a way to get it outside. She hit the "deactivate" button and watched as the machine's movement halted. She took a deep breath to calm herself as the lights on its casing faded, but her mind was racing.

"This is amazing," she said, unable to contain her excitement. "With those segmented legs, it can move across all sorts of terrain, and it tracked my motion perfectly. It seems to be programmed with a user recognition function. These devices were intended to be war machines, but think of their practical uses. If they can be controlled remotely, they can work alongside people. Can you imagine?" Zelda knew she was rambling, but she didn't care. "No one has been able to do anything with ancient technology since the Calamity, almost certainly. But this Guardian is something tangible, something we can show people. Or, no, I'm getting ahead of myself. It should be kept secret, but…"

But what? There must be a reason why the Sheikah were keeping their research on ancient technology out of the public eye. Was it really as her father had said, that suspicion of an impending calamity would create civil unrest? But what if there was no calamity? What if the perceived need for secrecy truly was nothing more than superstition?

"There are Guardians all around Hyrule," Ganondorf said. "It would cause no harm if one of them were to start moving. A secret can only be kept for so long. There's no sense in delaying the inevitable."

"Appropriating classified state property isn't ideal," Zelda objected. "And making a public demonstration of magic isn't a crime, exactly, but…"

Ganondorf stepped toward her. She returned his phone, and he took the opportunity to place his hand on the small of her back, pulling her closer. "Behind every great fortune is a crime," he murmured. He kissed her once, gently, his lips barely lingering on hers. It was a question, and she was glad to answer.

"Well then," she replied, her lips a mere moment away from his. Whatever doubts she had concerning the validity of her research had evaporated in the brilliant glow of the Guardian's light. A discovery like this could change history, and she was right at the center of it. Zelda smiled. "I say we make our fortune."

Ganondorf kissed her again, slowly and deliberately. There was no awkwardness, and nothing to explore. He knew her, and he wanted her.

He drew her to him with a sweet, careful slowness. Zelda relaxed against him, allowing herself to be held. "Why do you keep coming after me?" she asked.

"I don't understand it, but you fascinate me," he breathed into her ear, taking her hand and guiding it onto his cock, stiff and pulsing with his heartbeat beneath the fabric of his suit pants. She looked up to face him, and he kissed her again, as softly as a sigh.

She trailed her fingers along the length of his shaft. He tensed before embracing her with a renewed fierceness, pushing her back against the Guardian. His eyes seemed to shine as he bent over her, possessively surrounding her with his body.

He knew exactly what to do with his hands, touching her where she needed to feel him. Her entire body felt flushed. Warm tendrils of pleasure snaked across her skin and made her throb between her legs. Ganondorf's breath was hot against her skin as he placed kisses along her jaw. "I want to take you home," he whispered into her ear in a low voice that made her so hot she could hardly stand it. "I want to take my time with you."

Zelda shivered as she wondered how his hands would feel against her bare skin. It was difficult to hold still as her desire swelled. She rocked against his hardness. He groaned low in his throat. "Let me take you home, Zelda."

"Will you become a monster?"

"If that's what you want."

What she wanted was for him to take her then and there, but she forced herself to push him back. "No, I'm serious."

He grasped her hand and placed her palm against his chest before using the tip of his finger to draw a triangle on her skin. It might have been her imagination, but the shape seemed to glimmer with a golden sheen.

"There's only one way to find out."

She knew how dangerous this was. "Are you using me?" she asked, feeling his heartbeat thick and steady through the hot length pressed against her. "Are you seducing me just to see what will happen?"

"I would never harm you." He kissed her, his tongue sweet on her lips. "I would be lying if I said I didn't want to know what will happen, but I'm not using you. Not for this. I want _you_ to use _me_. Let yourself use me, Zelda."

She rolled her hips against him once more. He grit his teeth, and his grip tightened. His struggle to hold himself back was unbelievably erotic.

Zelda wanted him as much as he wanted her, but she wouldn't be satisfied by his body alone. She wanted his beautiful apartment, the fine clothing he wore, the confidence he exuded as he moved through the world, the sureness of his speech. She wanted his magic, and she wanted his power. She wanted everything, and she was willing to take it. If he turned into a monster, she was prepared for that as well. This was what her dreams and visions had been preparing her for, but the man who held her was not a hallucination, not when his hands and lips were so hot on hers. He may have been born from her nightmares, but she had no interest in running, not when she held the most vulnerable part of him in her hand.

"Take me home, then. Do it quickly." She bit his bottom lip. "Do it now."

He kissed her again and did as she asked, embracing her as he took her into the Twilight.

After a few minutes, the motion-sensitive lights in the empty room clicked off.

The deserted lab was still and silent save for the soft hum of cooling fans. The gentle darkness lingered until, almost imperceptibly, the Guardian began to glow. The illuminated lines swirling across its ceramic casing gradually grew brighter as a poisonous magenta crept into the cyan streams. A faint humming echoed across the concrete floor, and the machine's single eye blinked open as its spidery legs twitched in anticipation.


End file.
